Ericsson, Play and Asseco demonstrate mobile-network drone detection in Poland

TLDR

• Ericsson, Play and Asseco demonstrated mobile-network drone detection in Kraków on 15 October for Polish officials.¹²
• It pairs Ericsson's radio-based ISAC sensing with Asseco's acoustic sensors on the PUSZCZYK platform.¹³
• Rzeczpospolita says whether the military or civil infrastructure would operate such a system remains unresolved.³

Ericsson, Polish mobile operator Play and Asseco Poland showed how a multi-layered system using mobile networks could detect drones and protect sites such as airports, ports and borders, according to a Play press office release dated 22 October.¹ The real-time demonstration took place on 15 October at Ericsson's R&D Center in Kraków.¹ Attendees included Polish government representatives, the parliamentary digitalisation committee, defence-sector and military research institutions, the telecoms regulator UKE, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency and ORLEN.¹

The system combines Ericsson's Integrated Sensing and Communication (ISAC) technology, which uses reflections of transmitted radio signals to detect objects, with Asseco's acoustic detection, built on sensors from Codequest and DGT ZVOOK, and data shown on Asseco's PUSZCZYK platform.¹ Play's network carried the data.¹ The stated aim is a multi-layered system that locates low-flying drones precisely.¹ Mobile Europe adds that ISAC can detect drones even when they are not connected to a mobile network.⁴ Telecoms.com notes that ISAC is being touted as a key potential 6G use case.²

Rzeczpospolita, which reported on the event separately, says it was the first demonstration of an ISAC drone-detection system in Europe outside Scandinavia, that Asseco supplies the analysis and visualisation platform with sensors from partners, and that Cellnex supplies ground infrastructure.³ The first-demonstration claim and the Cellnex role appear only in that report. It also says the key unanswered question is who would operate the system, the military or civil infrastructure, and that a successful demonstration opens a debate on the state's role.³

Martin Mellor, head of Ericsson Poland, said: "Together with Asseco and using Play's mobile network for the backhaul, we can create an advanced, situational awareness platform for drone detection and tracking."² None of the sources reviewed gives detection range, accuracy or false-alarm figures, and this was a demonstration, not a deployment.

Why it matters: the demonstration points to using existing mobile masts as a low-altitude drone sensing layer in Poland, where Rzeczpospolita calls low-flying drone detection a weak point; without published performance data or a decision on who would run it, watch for tests with the military or state agencies and for any detection figures.