Marines with Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command pose for photos in cyber operations room at Lasswell Hall aboard Fort Meade, Maryland, Feb. 5, 2020. (DVIDS)
WEST 2022: A new prototype 5G communications network infrastructure testbed for the Marine Corps, currently under development, is meant to help rapid experimentation and integration of commercial tech, a Lockheed Martin official told reporters today.
“The infrastructure will also allow for the connection of various 5G ready user devices, sensors, vehicles and end points to explore the military’s utility of commercial 5G technologies and pave the way for onboarding of new technologies from other OUSD investments while addressing cybersecurity requirements,” Deon Viergutz, vice president for spectrum convergence for Lockheed Martin, told reporters here at the West 2022 conference in San Diego.
Through a recently awarded $19.3 million prototype project agreement, Lockheed is developing the Open Systems Interoperable and Reconfigurable Infrastructure Solution, or OSIRIS, at the Marine Corps base in Camp Pendleton, Calif.
The company is developing the prototype for the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering through September 2024 alongside subcontractors Intel Corp, Radisys Corp, Rampart Communications and DISH Wireless.
Viergutz said the testbed will host experiments in communications devices, sensors and artificial intelligence/machine learning capabilities.
The capability also aims to advance DoD’s Joint All Domain concept, Veirgutz said, by addressing two “key enablers” of 5g technologies: high bandwidth and low latency. (In it’s Project Convergence series of experiments, the Army recently learned that the digitization of modern combat makes both bandwidth and latency critical.)
Lockheed is one of numerous companies the Pentagon has worked with to further its 5G efforts. In 2020, DoD awarded two “tranches” of pilot projects focused on enabling 5G networks at US bases.
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Those awards included over 100 companies and work spanned across all the services. For the Air Force, Nokia looked at alternative approaches to share spectrum between military radars and 5G communications in the commercial sector.
Meanwhile, for the Navy, efforts included a smart warehouse initiative focused on supplies being packaged for delivery and even digital tracking. And for the Army, one of the things DoD wanted to do was build 5G networks for virtual reality and augmented reality training.
