Marine Corps tests tactical 5G, looks at wider adoption for communications

A small unit of Marines recently experimented with new 5G networking capabilities as the Corps is expanding its adoption of the technology to enable nimbler operations in more complex environments.

The force, part of Marine Air Control Group 38, participated in Steel Knight 24, an exercise at Camp Pendleton, California, where they used a 5G system to remote into a AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar for its multifunction air operations center, which includes the air controllers and air defenders serving as the sensor to coordinate aircraft in the tactical battlespace. It must be expeditionary in case troops have to pick up and move.

That event was the culmination of nearly four years of work, in part, evaluating how the Marines can incorporate 5G into tactical formations.

Using capabilities provided by the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity, the unit at Steel Knight sought to demonstrate the ability to keep the radar a significant distance away to prove they can keep the radar survivable — because once it’s turned on, it can be targeted by the enemy, along with any forces operating close by — and provide another means of transport to ensure data gets to the air ops center.

In the past, the control group was able to successfully remote into the radar via satellite communications, officials said, but now they’re demonstrating that can be done through the terrestrial layer with a high bandwidth communications system like a 5G radio.

Looking to the future

The Marine Corps is excited about what 5G capabilities can bring to the force. They promise to enhance concepts that the service and the larger Defense Department enterprise are pursuing.

For the Corps, 5G technologies are poised to bolster its “stand-in force” mentality — which requires forces to already be present in theater near the enemy before crisis or conflict breaks out — along with Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations, which involves mobile, low-signature units that can operate in austere areas temporarily and move from location to location. All of this fits into the larger Force Design concept, an annually updated vision to modernize the Corps.

These are also all in concert with the DOD’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, which envisions how systems across the entire battlespace from all the services and key international partners could be more effectively and holistically networked to provide the right data to commanders, faster.

Future operating environments will demand that forces be smaller, more dispersed, nimble and have low electromagnetic signatures. This means units must not have a lot of equipment, and communications gear needs to be intuitive — allowing them to move quickly to avoid being targeted and be resilient in the face of unforeseen technical difficulties or enemy jamming.

“When you go into an expeditionary environment, the rules change a little bit and [commercial off-the-shelf] hardware can certainly still be applicable. But when your focus is, in an EABO context, really flexible, [the] Marine Corp ethos of shoot, move and communicate, you have to be able to move quickly. Stand-in forces that are supposed to be small, highly mobile, lethal, self-sustaining, they need a network that can move with them and support that same type capability,” said Lt. Col. Benjamin Pimentel, who is on detail from the Combat Development and Integration directorate to the FutureG office within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, where he serves as the director of advanced component development and prototypes.

“We think that a 5G architecture, moving into 6G, can really help support that. Certainly not a silver bullet. There is no silver bullet, but we think it can be a larger part of DOD’s overarching concept of Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control,” he said in an interview.

Members of Control Group 38 explained that the technologies tested at Steel Knight could improve the way they operate if brought to fruition.

5G capabilities provide additional transport options for units that will likely be operating in denied environments, meaning if satellite communications are unavailable, this is one more path they can use.

They can also allow units to operate more dispersed — both from each other and assets such as radars that put units at risk given they are easily targetable — making them more mobile and easier to move equipment.

The radar “can be a significant distance away, but now we’re not going to have the dependency on the Marine to actually run that fire line a significant distance away. It makes picking up and moving more appetizing,” Maj Anthony Johnson, operations officer within the control group, said in an interview. “If we could have this capability right now, I think that what the value proposition for our service is that we can essentially have two teams instead of just one conglomerate of Marines in one location … You just put that in the perspective of command-and-control systems … The radar, you can stow it or you can emit, but as soon as you get the target quality tracks, you can pick up and move that radar while still having that air operation center remain in place. Or the inverse of that, the air operation center can displace while the radar is still in place and you won’t lose connectivity.”

Steel Knight also demonstrated the ability to use 5G to support autonomous platforms leveraging the high throughput of the network. This allowed the units to send full-motion video back that could be analyzed by algorithms to enable automatic object recognition, target detection and target tracking.

This was an important demonstration because the technology could eventually keep more Marines away from the front lines if they can rely on reliable sensors to provide the information they need rather than risking the lives and resources of humans.

“In a stand-in force context where I want to be lethal, mobile, lightweight and self-sustaining, if I can reduce the number of Marines that I need to send forward because … I can limit that number [of force protection capabilities] through autonomy, I don’t have to have Marines on posts all the time,” Pimentel said. “I can have them somewhat centralized, like a [quick reaction force], and when the autonomy cues me that there might be a threat based on what it’s looking for and you can deploy those [thereby] reducing the number of Marines on a stand-in force through manned-unmanned teaming, I think is the capability that you need in a high-speed network to support. 5G is able to do that.”

Hiding in plain sight

Using 5G technologies will also allow troops to digitally camouflage themselves against the enemy, according to officials, a key lesson coming from Ukraine’s war with Russia.

Unlike the post-9/11 conflicts against a technologically inferior enemy, future operations in the electromagnetic spectrum will be fraught. Any time a radio is pushed, a radar turned on, a digital device used, it emits a unique electronic signature within the spectrum. Advanced adversaries have spectrum analyzers to tell them what the device is and physically where it’s located on the battlefield, allowing them to either jam it or fire munitions on its position, potentially killing the troops in proximity.

Leveraging 5G capabilities, which are ubiquitous in most of the world — and with the right security protections in place — can allow units to literally hide in plain sight.

“If you get within 10 kilometers of the front, they [Ukrainians] use green gear or programs-of-record radios that have been provided to them by the United States or whatever they have organically to them. But in reading some interviews and some things on at a higher classification, using those radios can often put you at a disadvantage because they give off very specific waveforms. They [the Russians] know if someone is using it, that streams important person, target them immediately,” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Kelsen Epperson, space and propagation engineering officer with the control group, said in an interview. “Cellular is so ubiquitous, it’s proliferated, everybody has it, it’s everywhere, it’s hard to tell who’s who and who’s what.”

The Marine Corps is testing private 5G capabilities, meaning troops have to bring their own routers, as opposed to plugging into a foreign nation’s infrastructure, which, according to some, can be dangerous if it’s a non-permissive environment given the host nation has access and can easily intercept communications.

Within the EABO context, where forces will be operating in remote regions, they will absolutely have to bring their own equipment.

In the future, however, the Marines aren’t ruling out the possibility of leveraging host nation infrastructure if the right security protocols are put in place.

“In places where existing 5G networks are provided by the host nation, we think that there are ways that you can leverage that, and doing so in a secure manner is a large thrust within our office. The same way that when we go to other countries, there’s a road that’s already there, I’m going to drive on it. There’s a bridge that’s already there and it meets my requirement, drive over it. I’m not going to expend the resources to create my own bridge further across the water feature or build my own road if I don’t need to,” Pimental said. “Insofar as we can use [existing 5G] in a way that meets mission requirements with an operational security perspective, we absolutely want to do that.”

One example from Ukraine that officials described was how units were discovered by the Russians because they were using the same devices each time when attacking positions. The Russians eventually caught on.

The counter was to start provisioning SIM cards. Each time troops would walk into an operations center, they would drop their old SIM cards and pick up new ones with new numbers and country codes. This means they could use the same device but from a signature perspective, that device was never in the same place twice. As a result, neither side has interest in jamming those signals because they would then be jamming the ones that their forces are using as well. Marine Corps officials noted there is inherent survivability from hiding in plain sight.

Plugging into host infrastructure also helps with spectrum deconfliction, Pimentel noted. The spectrum is a finite resource and portions of it must be allocated for certain uses and frequencies. But if one is already a user within that existing infrastructure as opposed to bringing their own capability, they’re already licensed under that country’s laws and regulations, effectively sidestepping that process.

Training and resourcing

Officials acknowledged that especially in the private 5G context, there’s additional equipment that forces will need to procure, carry, set up and be trained on. But, over the long run, those technologies and others as part of overall commercial 5G are easier to use and maintain, which could lead to cost savings.

“The total cost of ownership argument is something that we try to focus on, because you can imagine an initial hardware purchase to run one of these networks could be higher versus a sustained program of record that’s already going,” Pimentel said. “However, I think when you consider the cost of a handset, the phone that you probably have with you right now, versus a tactical radio, there’s a significant price differential between those two.”

He noted that if the Corps begins to shift to leveraging more commercial devices for communication, such as 5G-enabled cellular devices, those are cheaper and more expendable than exquisite military radios.

“While you might look at initial price tag that was way more expensive, total cost of ownership is likely in the long run, cheaper. You may take a dip in the red to find yourself back in the black after a number of years once you’re in sustainment because, I’d argue, it’s never the initial purchase price that gets you, it’s the carrying cost that gets you over the lifetime of the program,” he said. A cellular device “is almost an expendable versus how expensive some of our other platforms are, then you start to shift more to the same type of attritable system mindset that the department is taking through large initiatives like Replicator.”

The adaptability of these networks makes them an attractive capability. Especially now that commercial providers have begun to enable direct to cell from satellite like iPhones’ new satellite communications SOS function, if cellular is unavailable.

“Global ubiquitous coverage is something DOD has always wanted, and commercial wireless is now starting to provide it,” Pimentel said. “If I’m only taking a phone forward and that’s what I’m paying for, plus the subscription costs and then the same back end services … that I was already paying for anyway, I think you can see a significant cost reduction.”

Taking advantage of this type of model also reduces training burdens. Most Marines today grew up using smartphones. They’re intuitive and don’t come with lengthy training manuals. That means less time and resources required in the training pipeline to get forces up to speed on exquisite systems.

“In the future, what we’re trying to demonstrate to the service, but also just the DOD writ large, is that Marines are capable, they’re eager to learn and they’re excited to employ something that is significantly more capable than what we currently have,” Johnson said.