South Korea’s mobile leader SK Telecom (SKT) partnered with US-based wireless transmission specialist Kumu Networks to demonstrate a robot traffic officer using In Band Full Duplex (IBFD) technology at the World IT Show in Seoul this week.

The robocop has built-in cameras, microphones and multiple sensors that enable it to not only mirror human movement without latency, but also to transmit and receive multimedia data – both video and audio – to/from the control centre in real time.

Many operators are highlighting IBFD a key pre-5G technology because it enables simultaneous in-band uplink and downlink communication by cancelling signal interference in real time to significantly improve spectral efficiency. Networks currently can’t transmit and receive signals at the same time on the same channel, which means operators have to choose either FDD or TDD to enable communication between base stations and handsets.

SKT and Kumu signed a technology cooperation agreement in March at MWC in Barcelona. California-based Kumu is a developer of signal processing and IBFD technology.

Kumu’s CEO, David Cutrer, said that SKT’s wirelessly controlled traffic robot is the perfect metaphor for Full Duplex’s role in alleviating wireless traffic jams.