The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering’s FutureG Office and the Naval Postgraduate School have partnered on a project to advance the adoption of 5G and FutureG networks and develop the workforce that may be tasked with deploying such networks in expeditionary environments, DVIDS reported Wednesday.
The Active-Duty Open-Source Development project, or ADOSD, intends to establish a graduate-level education and research program at NPS to enable active-duty personnel to develop expertise in 5G and FutureG.
To support the project, the FutureG Office will invest $1.8 million in NPS over the next five years.
Tom Rondeau, principal director of FutureG at the Department of Defense, approved the investment on April 22.
“FutureG pursued this partnership because NPS understands the mission context in which 5G/FutureG technology will come to bear,” said Rondeau.
“This extends beyond the active-duty students to the faculty and staff that have become highly skilled in the application of their expertise to dynamic warfighter challenges. The expertise they gain will help us understand how to buy, deploy, and manage advanced wireless networks like 5G and 6G. Coupled with their previous experiences in the fleet, this will help us innovate and deploy technologies that support future operations and the department’s strategic vision,” he added.
ADOSD Project’s Three Phases
The initial phase of the project will advance master and doctoral-level research that will leverage an open standards-based private 5G network testbed. The research should align with FutureG’s Expeditionary and Tactical Use portfolio and other priorities.
The research will inform curriculum development efforts in the second phase, which will implement a course progression resulting in an academic certificate.
The third and final phase will continuously develop the cellular curriculum to support master and doctoral research and ensure operational and technical relevance.