Based at NC State, AERPAW—Aerial Experimentation and Research Platform for Advanced Wireless—is the first wireless research platform to study the convergence of 5G technology and autonomous drones.

AERPAW is funded by a $24 million grant, awarded by the PAWR Project Office on behalf of the National Science Foundation, to develop an advanced wireless research platform, led by North Carolina State University, in partnership with Wireless Research Center of North Carolina, Mississippi State University and Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; additional partners include Town of Cary, City of Raleigh, North Carolina Department of Transportation, Purdue University, University of South Carolina, and many other academic, industry and municipal partners.

For experimenters interested in using AERPAW, the User Manual of AERPAW can be accessed here.