Nokia has announced that it has extended its partnership with Hill Air Force Base and the National Spectrum Consortium to ensure that incumbent radar and 5G networks operating can co-exist seamlessly in shared spectrum by controlling the behavior in real time of the 5G system when the incumbent radar is present. Hill Air Force Base is using Nokia’s O-RAN solutions for the testbed and Phase 1 of the project has been successfully completed. The project is part of a wider initiative by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) to create its first tranche of 5G wireless testbeds.
Nokia is a leader in Open RAN innovation and its Service Enablement Platform combines RIC and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) capabilities to deliver radio network programmability and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning across the Open RAN ecosystem. For Hill Air Force Base, Nokia’s Service Enablement Platform exposes radar interference detection and mitigation capabilities via an O-RAN interface developed by the O-RAN Alliance.
Deb Stanislawski, Director Prototyping and Experimentation, OUSD(R&E) 5G, stated: “We appreciate the dedication of our industry partners working with us to deliver on the potential of these cutting-edge 5G networking solutions and 5G enabled applications. Nokia developed the 5G Testbed solution at Hill AFB to help ensure DoD radar detection can co-exist with commercial 5G networks operating in the same shared spectrum. We look forward to continuing our work together to help move beyond the state-of-the-art in 5G commercial architectures to ensure we address key Warfighting needs and expand U.S.-based capabilities critical to 5G adoption.”
Michael Loomis, General Manager at Nokia Federal Solutions, said: “We initially partnered with Hill Air Force Base on a testbed for dynamic spectrum sharing, and this extension of our agreement with Hill Air Force Base is a testament to our ability to deliver standards-based solutions that meet the DoD’s requirements. For this next phase, we leveraged our O-RAN platform with RIC capabilities for the testbed. Nokia was the first major vendor to join the O-RAN Alliance, we have contributed more to O-RAN specifications than any other company, we chair three workgroups which are Open Fronthaul, RAN Intelligent Controller, and Operation and Management and participate in all but two workgroups. We continue to deliver innovation with security and openness built-in.”
