Satellite Applications Catapult to Expand its Living Labs Network
Following the successful launch of the Agri and Health Living Labs in July 2022, the Satellite Applications Catapult is expanding its nat...
An open and accessible test facility, offering satellite and terrestrial capabilities in a realistic, comprehensive environment.
The Westcott Future Network Development Centre (FNDC) is s a joint funded venture between the Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership (BLEP) and the Satellite Applications Catapult, focused on resilient communications. We are an open and accessible UK test centre for all ITU Primitives, providing total standardised COTS testing facilities. We also offer 5G test and development Ofcom licences from 700Mhz to 4200Mhz and satellite and terrestrial capabilities such as fully virtualized 5G core and state of the art O-RAN deployments.
The FNDC capabilities are available to hire for your technology development, or you can partner with us for support from our communications experts. Any new businesses working in 5G are also recommended to check out the Westcott Incubator and Accelerator programme (embedded link) – a new funding opportunity that will enable early-stage businesses, or small and medium enterprises, to explore and develop their innovations using the facilities and expert teams based at Westcott.
In an integrated 5G ecosystem, satellite networks are providing a highly dependent and global coverage type of communication. Satellites are well positioned to target high data rate broadcast/multicast services, M2M narrowband services, congestion offload of terrestrial networks (ie. for signalling and/or video) as well as highly distributed and customised enterprise networks (ie. critical infrastructures, dedicated M2M, industrial communication).
The Westcott FNDC offers a unique facility to test and develop new services and products by accessing the latest wireless applications service equipment and satellite data without the need to invest in expensive infrastructure. This allows you to rapidly prototype and commission new services and applications under representative real-world conditions ahead of your market roll-out.
The Future Networks Development Centre is managed and run by the Satellite Applications Catapult’s Ubiquitous Connectivity team. This talented group of software, hardware, networks, and systems engineers are always on hand to support your set up, integration, testing, and product or service development within the Future Networks Centre.
The FNDC enables the rapid deployment of proof-of-concept as well as for resilience, security and reliability evaluations into the different network areas, addressing the highly diverse requirements coming from the different verticals of each domain.
The centre encompasses a comprehensive, highly customisable, and re-configurable network environment, based on commercially available components and dedicated toolkits.
Westcott provides a secure, controlled environment within 650 acres of open space available within the estate. The site is situated in a rural area with poor terrestrial coverage, allowing for testing of new infrastructure without the risk of causing interference to existing systems.
The location also offers a significant variety of local geographical features that can be used to validate novel concepts of operation and operational technology. We offer the ideal location for combining autonomous systems, such as drones, with 5G as you can fly and test connections here!
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