Operationalizing USMC 5G: Expeditionary Radio Access Networks

The Marine Corps' current communication infrastructure faces limitations in bandwidth, latency, and interoperability, hindering its ability to leverage emerging technologies and maintain information dominance in the 21st-century battlespace.

The Tactical Cellular Lab at the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity (MCTSSA) addresses these challenges by investigating, integrating, and implementing 5G and FutureG wireless networking solutions tailored to the unique operational requirements of the United States Marine Corps (USMC). This initiative directly supports DoD and HQMC mandates to rapidly adopt 5G technology for force modernization.

The Tactical Cellular Lab developed a software baseline and integrated commercial-off-the-shelf components to build several Expeditionary Radio Access Network (XRAN) kits. These kits were demonstrated in several exercises and experimental events over the past several months. The XRAN is an open, modular, stable, and scalable prototype that implements a distributed 5G architecture suitable for seamless connectivity from garrison environments to the tactical edge.