MONAX

MONAX - 3G Wireless for Warfighters

3G Wireless to the Tactical Edge

MONAX is a powerful, new communications system that combines the convenience of smartphone technology with the power and flexibility of a secure, highly portable infrastructure. MONAX gives our nation’s warfighters the convenient and immediate communication capability they need to achieve mission success.  

Modified Commercial 3G Wireless

A 3G wireless system, MONAX consists of a unique portable sleeve that connects touch-screen COTS smartphones to base station infrastructures on the ground or in airborne platforms, offering uninterrupted service to warfighters in the field. With MONAX, Lockheed Martin places persistent broadband communications at the fingertips of soldiers anytime, anywhere.

An enhanced version of commercial 3G wireless operating on non-traditional frequencies, the system consists of a unique portable MONAX Lynx sleeve that connects touch-screen COTS smartphones to the MONAX XG Base Station infrastructure on ground or airborne platforms, offering uninterrupted service to soldiers in the field.

MONAX uses a secure RF link, protected through strong, exportable military-grade encryption enabling the transfer of pertinent and sensitive information with speed and ease. With improved range and connectivity while delivering superior link performance in voice, video and data transmission, MONAX ensures that the information soldiers need is only a click away.

This COTS based, smartphone enabling interface operates anywhere in theater. MONAX uses a secure RF Link, protected through strong exportable encryption enabling the transfer of pertinent and sensitive information with speed and ease. With improved, flexible range and penetration delivering superior link performance in voice, video and data transmission, MONAX ensures that the information soldiers need at “the first tactical mile” is only one click away.

MONAX offers a rich set of applications and governance, leveraging commercial smartphone application development and application store model. Applications can be easily written or re-hosted on a smartphone, reviewed/approved for mission effectiveness, hosted in a 24x7 app store and made available to the warfighter.

Glenn Kurowski, Lockheed Martin MONAX Program Director, and Dave Westley, Lockheed Martin MONAX Business Development Director

Lockheed Martin IS&GS
PO Box 8048
Philadelphia, PA 19101

Smarter Communication

Consumer Phones Power Lockheed's Battlefield Comm System

By WILLIAM MATTHEWS 
Published: 16 August 2010

Conceding that commercial cell phone makers can develop new technology faster, cheaper and perhaps better than can big defense companies working under Pentagon contracts, defense giant

Lockheed Martin has decided to use commercial smart phones as the heart of its new battlefield communication system.

The system, which Lockheed calls MONAX - for mobile network access - is intended to bring third-generation wireless network cell phone service to soldiers in combat.

But there's a lot more happening here than just phone calls. The aim, said program director Glenn Kurowski, is to make the deluge of information that is collected by aircraft, sensors, satellites and soldiers readily available to troops who need it on the battlefield.

The smart phones are operated by touch screens and are armed with "apps," small computer programs that display information on maps, play videos, display photos, and make it possible to receive and use information ranging from intelligence reports to biometric identification data.

For all that it's designed to do, MONAX is surprisingly simple in concept for a military communications system.

From the user's perspective, simply slide a smart phone - iPhone, Android or other commercial smart phone - into a plastic sleeve that enables it to connect to a private military 3G network, then start communicating.

The smart phones are "unmodified," Kurowski stressed. Using off-the-shelf phones keeps costs lower, eliminates the need for substantial training and enables the military to use existing apps, he said. The phones cost several hundred dollars.

The phone's sleeve contains a battery for extended use, an antenna and radio components that enable the smart phone to connect to the MONAX network. The sleeve, which Lockheed calls a "Lynx sleeve," costs about $1,100.

Compared to the cost of traditional military radios, which Kurowski said can range from $3,000 to $18,000 apiece, a smart phone and sleeve is a bargain.

From the network operator's perspective, MONAX requires setting up at least one base station and an antenna to broadcast the network's wireless signal, Kurowski said. A single base station can provide service to hundreds of smart phones, Lockheed says.

Each base station costs about $300,000.

Lockheed says its base stations provide substantially better coverage than competing technologies.

"MONAX provides large pancake-sized coverage areas whereas competing technologies provide dot-sized coverage areas," Kurowski said.

"The large coverage area is a function of many things," he said. A key one "is the nature of the waveform itself." Others include "propagation, noise cancellation, operating frequency and error correction characteristics."

Together, they give the MONAX system "an order of magnitude longer range than most systems," Kurowski said.

The base stations could be located on the ground, in vehicles or in aircraft, he said. Aerostats are attractive platforms because they can remain tethered at useful altitudes to provide broad coverage, he said.

Mounted on an aerostat, a base station would provide coverage in an area 70 kilometers in diameter, he said.

It takes only a few hours to set up a one-base-station network, Lockheed said. A multibase-station network, of course, takes longer.

The network is protected by 256-bit encryption, which is good enough for transmitting sensitive and even secret information, Kurowski said. However, the military might not be comfortable transmitting highly classified information over the network, he said.

And if one of the system's sleeves gets lost, captured or stolen, it can be remotely disabled, Kurowski said.

By building a communication system around widely used and popular commercial technology, Lockheed believes it is anticipating a trend that will increasingly influence U.S. military acquisition.

Tighter acquisition budgets, the changing nature of conflict, and the fast pace of innovation in commercial communications and information technology are "driving our customer to new thinking, new solutions and new tactics in the field," said Macy Summers, vice president of strategic development for Lockheed's Information Systems & Global Solutions division.

Lockheed wants to use its capability as a systems integrator to adapt low-cost, technically advanced, commercial off-the-shelf products for military use, he said. Smart phones seem like a good place to start. The Army is already emphasizing them with its Apps for the Army competition, aimed at rewarding Army personnel and employees for developing smart phone applications useful to the Army.

And the military's predominantly young work force has grown up with cell phones, smart phones and ubiquitous wireless connectivity. Young people entering the military "are used to information on demand," Kurowski said. They suffer "technological culture shock" when the don the uniform and are handed paper maps and walkie-talkies, he said.

Convinced that there will be a market for MONAX, Lockheed developed the system with its own money, not on a government contract.

As a business move, Lockheed's MONAX "makes perfect sense," said Greg Giaquinto, a senior aerospace and defense analyst for Forecast International. There is money to be made if Lockheed can establish itself as a vendor of communications gear that meets the military's needs and is familiar to the technologically savvy young people entering the service.

President Barack Obama may have set the stage for Lockheed's move, Giaquinto said. When the commander in chief insisted on keeping his BlackBerry - although a more secure version than a typical BlackBerry - "that opened up the door for something like this," Giaquinto said.

The only potential drawback to MONAX, he said, may be security.

"The biggest issue is that all of these devices are computers that can be hacked into." Lockheed might want to develop an upgraded version with tougher security standards set by the National Security, Giaquinto said.