Wave Relay MANET Supports Military ‘Internet of Things’
Persistent Systems, LLC (New York, NY) announced on 4 September that it has successfully supported the second On-Ramp Experiment of the USAF Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).
Taking place at multiple military sites under the auspices of US Space, Strategic and Northern Commands and concluding on 3 September, ABMS On-Ramp 2 simulated an attack on US national infrastructure. “To respond to such an attack in a coordinated fashion, the combatant commands needed reliable connectivity,” commented Adrien Robenhymer, VP of Business Development for Persistent Systems. “Our Wave Relay MANET [mobile ad-hoc network] technology played a major role in delivering that mobile connectivity fabric.”
Unlike a traditional platform-centric programme with a prime contractor, ABMS brings together dozens of companies in a multi-billion-dollar effort to build a military ‘Internet of Things.’ The goal is to connect computers, sensors and shooters at machine-speed, thus fulfilling DoD’s vision of Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2).
Among the several sites conducting the exercise was Nellis AFB, NV, where Persistent seamlessly connected strategic convoys with dismounts, sensors, vehicles and other support assets – enabling and defending a mobile C2 capability. In doing so, the company leveraged its work with Global Strike Command and the Air Force Research Lab on the WaRTAK and follow-on ROP programmes.
At White Sands Missile Range, NM, Persistent used its Cloud Relay edge-extension to feed treated sensor data to the Unified Data Library, a cloud-based architecture used to build common operating pictures (COP). “We also networked other enabling connectivity,” Robenhymer added. “For example, we backhauled 5G to austere areas, which is an amazing capability.”
Finally, at Andrews AFB, MD, the company helped the various COP visualize their data for distinguished visitors sitting in on On-Ramp 2 and gave members of the All Domain Operations Center a two-way communications path that ran all the way down to the individual dismount at the edge.
Persistent also partnered with Palantir, Anduril, Praseas, Boeing, Honeywell and other contractors to enable real-time data fusion for AI-enabled JADC2. This drastically reduced the kill chain.
“In all, we were connecting sensor to shooter, connecting vehicles, platforms, people and data all residing on our scalable, low-latency, high-bandwidth wireless network with room to spare for additional capabilities, such as counter-UAS or controlling drone swarms,” Robenhymer concluded.
