Digital Battlespace
AFCEA West 2012: LGS Innovations eyes military market
LGS Innovations is looking to break into the military market following the success of its Rapidly Deployed Network (RDN) during the Network Integration Exercise (NIE) 12.1 at White Sands Missile Range in November.
Speaking to Shephard at the AFCEA West conference in San Diego, US on 24 November, Adrian Hartman, senior manager and system architect of solution engineering at the company, said the RDN received 'very positive real time feedback' from the US Army during the exercise.
Describing the RDN as a 'network in a box', Hartman said the company was hoping to leverage its experience with the NIE to gain military recognition.
'We have sold boxes in a number of different areas, but we are hoping that NIE will make it attractive to the army,' Hartman explained.
The company, which is an independent subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, is waiting for written evaluation of the system's performance from the NIE testing, but considered it to have 'performed very well'.
The RDN includes two types of wireless connections. It can connect to a 4G network 'for broadband in the vicinity of the box', as well as an 802.11 Mesh capability, and the two can 'register each other and become part of one ad hoc network'. Typically vehicle-mounted, the system can also have an additional satellite connection added to it as well.
It utilises COTS technology, and is a sealed box capability that can operate in wide range of temperatures.
The company is also hoping that its lightRadio cell tower connection cube will appeal to the defence market, and Hartman described a move into this area as a 'forward looking' effort for LGS, with the advanced antenna technology that it contains being of interest to the military.
It is a 'baseball sized', uses advanced adaptive antennas, and 'is innovative because it replaces that need for a tower', Hartman explained.
He referred to the fact that by 2025 an additional three million mobile network towers would have to be erected to meet demands, and the lightRadio is an alternative to this that saves on space, the environment and cost, and is roughly half the cost to implement than a connection tower.
Hartman said it has better power efficiency and 'puts radio signals where you need them', requiring only one central processing area, which 'addresses the digital divide issue' which refers not enough people having access to servers.
The system was developed alongside Bell Labs, and was announced last year with trials currently being conducted on the system.
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