5G Affordable Reconfigurable Electronic Surveillance (5G-ARES)

AFSOC 361st ISRG has a mission statement to provide “direct threat warning and enhanced situational awareness”. Cobalt is building 5G-ARES; Affordable, Re-configurable Electronic Surveillance sensor to support this mission. The US Congress has directed DoD to harness 5G to enhance military capabilities and maintain a technological advantage on the battlefield. Future force-on-force engagements will need massive sensor connectivity, high data rate/low latency and other features that 5G can provide. But relying on unknown 5G infrastructure carries great risk to US Forces. We need to know critical details about the 5G laydown and detailed implementation of 5G in potential conflict zones to ensure that secure, trusted, time critical and robust performance, which weapon and intelligence systems depend on, can be achieved. Realtime knowledge of deployed 5G network attributes (metadata, coverage, loading/traffic etc.) is therefore mission critical. However, the densely fielded 5G base stations fundamentally change the approach needed for the Electronic Support/Electronic Surveillance mission. The low cost, commercial components of Cobalt’s existing 5G technology will be leveraged by the USAF to rapidly field affordable 5G ES sensors. This project will immediately support the mission of the 361st ISRG and the larger USAF, DoD and commercial industry in the future.