The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has much in store for 5G wireless cellular networks, whether considered commercial or military arms. This was underscored recently by a demonstration of 5G for providing critical information to aircraft personnel for the DoD’s flight-light ecosystem.
During the demonstration, Lockheed Martin successfully showed U.S. Army and Air Force officials how secure wireless cellular technology and the Network-enabled Analytics for Readiness 5G initiative (NeAR) can provide mission-critical information for tactical aircraft while also reducing operating costs.
Following the landing of an aircraft and with the aid of technical experts, the NeAR application performs data recordings for analysis and predictive maintenance based on artificial-intelligence (AI) procedures. The AI is capable of extensive searches throughout an aircraft (see image above) to detect small performance problems that could grow into bigger problems in the field.
Reeves Valentine, vice-president of Land and Maritime Solutions at Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems (Bethesda, Md.) explained the use of 5G to communicate details about maintenance applications for fighter aircraft, “This proof of concept demonstrated that our analytics tools are scalable and portable across multiple platforms to improve maintenance at the speed of relevance.” He added, “These intelligent troubleshooting applications are compatible with the future-state 5G.MIL ecosystem and in line with our 21st-century security efforts to keep our customers ahead of ready.”
Deb Stanislawski, Lockheed Martin’s director of Accelerate Use Prototyping and Experimentation in the OUSD (R&E) FutureG & 5G office, pointed to the importance of 5G and this demonstration to future military efforts: “Success of NeAR as part of a broader OUSD (R&E) 5G capability will demonstrate 5G enhancements for the Warfighter while simultaneously enabling experimentation that will identify areas at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam suitable for further research and development in 5G and beyond.”