The Department of Defense has made $600M in awards to support 5G testing and experimentation projects with 15 companies at five U.S. military installations.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington will work with AT&T (NYSE: T), Booz Allen Hamilton (NYSE: BAH), GBL System and Oceus Networks to deploy a 5G network to support experimentation of an augmented reality/virtual reality capability for use in operations, distributed training and mission planning.
Naval Base San Diego in California will come up with a 5G Smart Warehouse in partnership with AT&T, Deloitte, General Electric’s (NYSE: GE) research arm, and Vectrus (NYSE: VEC). The project will focus on transhipment between naval units and shore facilities to improve naval logistics operations.
Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany in Georgia will collaborate with Federated Wireless, GE Research, KPMG and Scientific Research Corp. to develop a 5G-based Smart Warehouse that will focus on vehicular maintenance and storage.
Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada will work with AT&T to create a testbed to assess 5G capabilities to improve distributed command and control.
Hill Air Force Base in Utah will work on a project focused on dynamic spectrum sharing with industry partners General Dynamics’ (NYSE: GD) mission systems business, Nokia, Booz Allen, Key Bridge Wireless, Shared Spectrum and Ericsson.
“The Department of Defense is at the forefront of cutting edge 5G testing and experimentation, which will strengthen our Nation’s warfighting capabilities as well as U.S. economic competitiveness in this critical field,” said Michael Kratsios, acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering and U.S. chief technology officer.
“Importantly, today’s announcement demonstrates the Department’s commitment to exploring the vast potential applications and dual-use opportunities that can be built upon next-generation networks,” added Kratsios, a 2020 Wash100 Award winner.
