Pentagon Using OTA for 5G Spectrum-Sharing Technology Prototypes

The Pentagon plans to issue a request for prototype proposals (RPP) seeking a set of spectrum-sharing technologies for radar systems using its Other Transaction Agreement (OTA) with the National Spectrum Consortium, according to an announcement on April 1.

The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense’s Emerging Capabilities Prototyping Office will release the RPPs, which will include work on 5G prototype testbeds, 5G prototype enhancements, and 5G prototype applications. Part of this effort will be to develop hardware, software and systems that allow the sharing of information between airborne radar systems and 5G cellular telephony systems in the 3.1 to 3.4 GHz band. The goal is advancement of 5G-enabled technologies that support dynamic spectrum sharing.

The U.S. Army and Contracting Command has a five-year OTA with the National Spectrum Consortium to develop spectrum-related technologies. In fiscal 2019 the consortium was awarded a total of $161.7 million on five projects according to Bloomberg Government’s Consortia OTA Awards dashboard.

In order to respond to the upcoming RPP, companies and other entities must be members of the NSC. For more information on joining the NSC, click here. Members of a consortium may include industry, academic, nonprofit, and for-profit entities. BGOV is tracking 28 active consortia: Click here to review our current list of individual consortia, and here to search for 91 upcoming OTA opportunities through consortia.

To contact the analyst on this story: Robert Levinson in Washington, D.C. at rlevinson@bgov.com