Lockheed Martin, AT&T Demonstrate High Speed Transfer of Black Hawk Data on AT&T 5G Private Network and 5G.MIL® Pilot Network

Lockheed Martin and AT&T securely and rapidly transferred UH-60M Black Hawk health and usage data through an AT&T 5G private cellular network and Lockheed Martin’s 5G.MIL® multi-site pilot network in a test conducted Aug. 4 at Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky headquarters in Stratford, Connecticut.

The test demonstrated that wireless 5G technologies on the flight line can support accelerated maintenance operations and improved aircraft readiness to support our service members. It also proved highly secure interoperability between the AT&T millimeter wave 5G private cellular network and the 5G.MIL pilot network.

  • Technology reduced data transfer time for military helicopters by more than 80%
  • Using 5G capabilities, network engineers transfer health and usage data from a Sikorsky UH-60M Black Hawk to Waterton, Colorado, for real-time analysis

“These 5G capabilities deployed at scale are expected to enable high-speed, secure-data transfer on virtually any flight line, providing another example of how we’re advancing our 21st Century Security vision by improving customer readiness and operations,” said Dan Rice, vice president of 5G.MIL Programs at Lockheed Martin. “In collaboration with commercial 5G leaders, an interoperable 5G.MIL multi-site, multi-vendor network is another step closer to reality.”

The AT&T 5G millimeter wave private cellular network wirelessly transferred data to the 5G.MIL network through ground support equipment from the Black Hawk’s Integrated Vehicle Health Management System (IVHMS). The data was then routed to local Sikorsky networks for processing and distribution through the secure Lockheed Martin 5G.MIL pilot network to the Waterton, Colorado, 5G test range site.

Image Credit:  AT&T

Currently, it takes Black Hawk crews about 30 minutes to remove the IVHMS data cartridge from the helicopter, transport it to an operations center and extract the data for analysis. Lockheed Martin used AT&T 5G private cellular technologies to reduce the time required to less than 5 minutes including cartridge removal, demonstrating the potential benefits in time and cost for military and commercial helicopter operations.

The IVHMS provides monitoring and diagnostic capabilities to ensure a more reliable aircraft. It monitors, captures and evaluates detailed aircraft-generated data as a result of flight maneuvers. It also captures aircraft limit exceedances on airframe and dynamic components and monitors temperature and vibration of key components on the aircraft. It does this through hundreds of on-board sensors that report the status of the aircraft by monitoring the airframe, engines, and other dynamic components. Operators assess these thousands of data points to ensure the aircraft is safe, reliable and ready to fly.

Timely and secure transfer and analysis of mission and operations data are critical to military readiness and effectiveness,” said Lance Spencer, client executive vice president, Defense, AT&T Public Sector and FirstNet. “This is one of many areas of commercial 5G innovation we are exploring to support defense, commercial aviation, and related fields where our 5G-related services can modernize legacy processes and help deliver truly transformational benefits.”

Lockheed Martin and AT&T also are working with other leading companies in networking and defense to modernize and transform communications capabilities for defense purposes. Future demonstrations are expected to further enhance 5G wireless technology communications solutions for flight lines, aiming to continually shorten aircraft turnaround times to reduce costs and improve military operational readiness. These capabilities deployed at scale can support high-speed, secure-data transfer on both commercial and military flight lines.

AT&T’s 5G and private cellular Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) capabilities are deployed together by multiple industrial customers in factories nationwide where they enable ultra-fast, highly secure wireless processing and information transfer.

References:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lockheed-martin-att-demonstrate-5g-high-speed-transfer-of-black-hawk-data-to-5gmil-pilot-network-301621053.html

https://www.business.att.com/products/att-private-cellular-networks.html

For additional information about Lockheed Martin, visit www.lockheedmartin.com/5G.

For more information about AT&T’s work in Defense, click here.

One thought on “Lockheed Martin, AT&T Demonstrate High Speed Transfer of Black Hawk Data on AT&T 5G Private Network and 5G.MIL® Pilot Network

  1. AT&T and Lockheed Martin have successfully conducted the transfer of helicopter data through the use of a private 5G network. The operator paired up with aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin to incorporate 5G into military environments, and to prove interoperability between the networks was possible. The tests saw AT&T transfer UH-60M Black Hawk health and usage data through a private AT&T cellular 5G network to Lockheed Martin’s 5G.MIL network, with the pilot conducted at Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky headquarters in Stratford, Connecticut, on August 4th

    Lockheed Martin used a mmWave network to send data from one of its Black Hawk helicopters to an operations center in less than five minutes, which is significantly quicker than the 30 minutes that it currently takes Black Hawk crews to remove data from the helicopter, and then for extraction.

    Data from the aircraft was generated by hundreds of sensors, with this information processed and distributed through a pilot Lockheed network to a 5G test site in Waterton, Colorado.

    “This is one of many areas of commercial 5G innovation we are exploring to support defense, commercial aviation, and related fields where our 5G-related services can modernize legacy processes and help deliver truly transformational benefits,” said AT&T public sector and FirstNet client EVP Lance Spencer.

    https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/att-pairs-with-lockheed-martin-to-test-5g-capabilities-for-helicopter-data-transfer/

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