Since transferring most of its 5G research and development projects to the Chief Information Office last year, the Pentagon’s Future Generation Wireless Technology Office has shifted its focus to preparing the Department of Defense for the next wave of network innovation.

This work is becoming increasingly important for the U.S., which is currently in a race with China to develop the next generation of wireless telecommunications, known as 6G. These more advanced networks, expected to be available in the 2030s, will pave the way for more reliable, high-speed, low-latency communications and could support the Pentagon’s technology interests – from robotics and autonomy to virtual reality and advanced sensing.

Staying ahead requires not only encouraging technology development and industry standards, but also ensuring policies and regulations are in place to safely use the capabilities, said Thomas Rondeau, director of the FutureG office at the Pentagon. Leading the global competition can give the Defense Department some control over what that future infrastructure looks like, he said.

“If we can define those who are going to buy into this, then when we export our technologies, we are also exporting our policies and regulations because they will be an integral part of these technology solutions,” Rondeau said in a recent interview with Defense News.

The Department of Defense began investing concertedly in 5G about five years ago, when then-Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Development Michael Griffin declared the technology a top priority for the Pentagon.

In 2020, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded contracts totaling $600 million to 15 companies to experiment with various 5G applications at five bases across the country. The projects included augmented and virtual reality training, smart warehousing, command and control systems, and spectrum utilization.

The ministry has since expanded the pilot projects and pushed forward other wireless network development projects, including a 5G challenge series that provided incentives for companies to move to more openly accessible networks.

The outcome so far has been mixed. Most pilot projects have not been included in official military programs, Rondeau said. Several of the failed attempts involved commercial augmented or virtual reality technologies that were not mature enough for the Department of Defense to warrant further funding.

Among the projects that have been transferred, Rondeau highlighted a pilot project at Washington’s Whidbey Island Airfield that created fixed wireless access to the base. Essentially, hundreds of pounds of cables were replaced with radios that transmit the communications network to the personnel who need it. Today, the system supports the base’s logistics and maintenance operations.

“This could be a huge benefit for operational readiness, but I also think it’s a very cost-effective way to reduce the cost of cables,” Rondeau said. “This will be an ongoing, sustainable project.”

This and other transferred pilot projects would likely feed into a formal budget cycle by fiscal year 2027, he added.

The U.S. Department of Defense also saw some success in the 5G Challenges it hosted in 2022 and 2023 to encourage telecommunications companies to transition to an Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN). A RAN is a wireless device’s first point of entry into a network and accounts for about 80% of its cost. In the past, proprietary RANs from companies like Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung dominated the market.

“They’re running a world where they control the entire system, the end-to-end system,” Rondeau said. “That creates a lack of insight, a lack of innovation on our part, and it creates challenges in applying these types of systems to unique, niche military needs.”

The 5G Challenge offered companies a chance to break that proprietary model by moving to O-RANS – and Rondeau said it was a success. The initial challenge was then expanded into a broader forum that covered topics such as energy efficiency and spectrum management. Ultimately, the effort reduced energy consumption by about 30%, he said.

Rondeau said that while the focus of these initiatives has been heavily on 5G, the work has also influenced the Pentagon’s vision and strategy for 6G, which the department believes should be open-source.

“This is not only a direct result of my background and my commitment to some of these things, but also the lessons we’ve learned from the networks we’ve deployed and the 5G Challenge,” he said. “All of these things have led us to believe that an open source software model is the right model for the military and, we believe, for industry as well.”

One of the FutureG office’s current top priorities, a direct result of the 5G challenge, is called CUDU, which stands for Centralized Unit, Distributed Unit. The project focuses on implementing a fully open software model for 6G that meets the needs of industry, the research community, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

The office is also studying how the military could use 6G for sensing and surveillance. Its Integrated Sensing and Communications project, called ISAC, uses wireless signals to gather information about different environments. This capability could be used to monitor drone networks or collect military intelligence.

While ISAC technology could provide a huge boost to the U.S. Department of Defense’s ISR systems, its commercialization could also make it accessible to adversary states that could use it as a weapon against the U.S. This challenge reflects the Department of Defense’s broader concerns about 6G policy and regulation – and is pushing Rondeau’s office to ensure the U.S. is first to lay the groundwork for these next-generation networks.

“We see this as a real opportunity for dramatic growth and interest in new, novel technologies for both commercial industry and defense purposes,” he said. “But also the threat landscape that this opens up for us is potentially quite dramatic, so we need to stay on top of it.”