The Army on Friday released a list of communications and electromagnetic spectrum projects the service will go after through the rest of 2019 under its new partnership with the National Spectrum Consortium (NSC).
The NSC signed a five-year prototype cooperation agreement with the Army in October, which will now focus on running six programs ranging from management of advanced wireless services to technologies required to operate in contested spectrum environments.
“Under this acquisition vehicle, the government, in coordination with industry, will develop and mature spectrum access technologies to enable improved cognizance of spectrum activity, protection of US activity in the electromagnetic spectrum domain, and the ability to relocate and/or share spectrum anytime, anywhere access is needed,” Army officials wrote.
Friday’s notice released summarized details of individual programs without specifying specific timelines or projected dates.
The Army and NSC will look to go after new spectrum aggregation technologies, including finding a vendor to demonstrate a prototype for an Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry transceiver capable of sensing local spectrum environments.
A second program will look for small unmanned communications systems, including tools to provide dynamic spectrum access, electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCM) and encryption technology.
“The prototype is directly relevant to military mission effectiveness as the warfighter must be able to employ, via secure and resilient communications, small unmanned systems in congested and contested spectrum environments,” officials wrote.
Additional program opportunities with NSC include demonstrating a “Spectrum Access Manager” tool to enable automated sharing on spectrum data, a Multiband Control Channel for an air combat training system and a new capability Operational Spectrum Comprehension, Analytics, and Response (OSCAR).
Officials wrote NSC will look for industry to develop “Risk-Informed Spectrum Access” tools to “enhance spectrum sharing behaviors based on situational uncertainty and risk thresholds.”