In a test conducted last month at Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky headquarters in Stratford, Connecticut, 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.
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.
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 companies said the test demonstrated that 5G on the flight line can support accelerated maintenance operations and improved aircraft readiness. It also proved highly secure interoperability between the AT&T millimeter wave 5G private cellular network and the 5G.MIL pilot network.
“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.”
