Lockheed Martin demonstrates 5G in ground vehicles

Lockheed Martin plans to demonstrate its 5G capabilities at Project Convergence 22 this fall using an unmanned aerial vehicle, a company official told reporters Tuesday. 

Lockheed has applied to include the demonstration in PC22, David Rohall, senior program manager on the company's Sensors and Global Sustainment Advanced Programs team, said. The company will work throughout this year to improve its 5G capabilities after it says it proved in November that it could bring 5G capability to its Open Architecture Processor.

That demonstration, a “first step” in advancing the technology, showed Lockheed could provide low-latency, high-bandwidth network connection between two humvees, Rohall said. Lockheed’s OAP is mature and ruggedized, Rohall said, and it was a straightforward process to install and integrate the 5G capability into the processor.

Lockheed says its 5G capabilities will eventually improve communications and connectivity across domains and improve soldier decision-making by quickly providing high-quality information.

“This is an enabling technology to share data securely, resiliently and seamlessly across that battlespace,” Rohall said.

The capability would improve joint-all domain communications and data transfer across greater distances, making Project Convergence an ideal venue for demonstrating improvements, he added. Project Convergence is the Army’s annual experiment in the Joint Warfighting Concept and Joint All Domain Command and Control where it collects information on a wide range of technologies.

PC22 is slated to be the first to include multinational partners, with Australia and the United Kingdom expected to participate.

Lockheed’s 5G demonstration will expand the capabilities of its earlier test, Rohall said.

“We’re actually going to provide our own network with the 5G on a Lockheed Martin Space asset,” Rohall said.

The company will also include an unmanned aerial vehicle to send real-time video back to the humvees, which would allow operators to better identify and locate threats and determine how to respond, he said.