Lockheed Martin has partnered with Microsoft to advance 5G.MIL technologies and support secure connectivity across US Department of Defense (DoD) systems, covering various domains.
According to the Lockheed Martin website, the 5G.MIL solutions help to integrate military communications with tactical gateway capabilities (.MIL), leveraging 5G technology to facilitate connectivity and data flow across all battlefield assets.
The technology aims to address adversary capabilities that seek to deny, degrade, or infiltrate communications networks.
The partnership will enable Lockheed Martin to use Microsoft’s 5G and Microsoft Azure services for Lockheed Martin’s hybrid base station.
This will enable the two companies to determine how to expand and manage 5G networking technology for joint-all domain operations (JADO) defence applications.
Lockheed Martin 5G.MIL Programs vice-president Dan Rice said: “Microsoft’s expertise in Cloud computing and scaling complement our vision to enable secure communications, and run critical mission applications at the edge.
“Innovative commercial partnerships like this help us accelerate and deploy the transformative capabilities that can best help our customers address a rapidly evolving threat landscape.”
The companies recently conducted a successful demonstration of advanced communications capabilities at Lockheed Martin Space’s 5G test range, in Colorado.
The demonstration used the Azure Private 5G Core, Azure Arc and connectivity (with Azure Government and Azure commercial Cloud environments) to connect three hybrid base stations, 5G and tactical radio (Link-16) interoperability, and real-time radio frequency (RF) analytics.
Mission Engineering corporate vice-president Tom Keane said: “Today’s announcement brings together Lockheed Martin’s transformative base station technology, and the power of Microsoft’s Cloud capabilities to deliver mission-critical solutions at the tactical edge.
“It is the latest step forward in our joint commitment to solving some of our nation’s toughest problems for a more secure future.”
Lockheed Martin is a security and aerospace company employing approximately 114,000 people worldwide.
In Q4 2021, the company recorded net sales of $17.7bn.
