This week, the leaders of the defense industry gathered in London for Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI), the leading military innovation trade show.
A Latvian delegation was also in attendance, within which LMT presented its national defense innovation export products. Along with the opportunities afforded by 5G, the new generation mobile network, the defense industry has also demonstrated a strong interest in 5G solutions.
Visitors to the LMT, including Latvia’s Minister of Defense Artis Pabriks and the Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom Ben Wallace, were introduced to the mission management system, drone traffic management system, machine vision, and other solutions within the defense industry.
Within the past years, mobile networks and devices have undergone rapid development. The next-generation 5G technology will offer not only the familiar speed improvement, which, with 5G, is already equivalent to that of the optical internet network. 5G opens the door to yet unseen mobile communications opportunities, for example, through opening a dedicated broadcast channel to defense institutions, in order to eliminate the interference of other, surrounding, internet usage. Similarly, 5G allows for data processing not only to be centralized, but also to be performed locally – in the base station zone, for fast data analysis in a limited location. Through developing 5G, new opportunities have presented themselves within the 4G network as well. For example, NarrowBand IoT technology offers mobile internet to access places where it previously was not able to reach. Similarly, the 4G network also allows for the creation of local mobile networks for specific company or institution requirements.
Latvia is among the world leaders in mobile communication usage. With 2G and 3G, Latvia lead by being the most talkative in Europe. With 4G, Latvia is within the top 3 worldwide in mobile internet consumption. This, in turn, is a significant advantage to becoming a leader in 5G.
As an innovative mobile communications operator that engages in research and development in the defense industry, LMT can help companies in other countries, such as IT and communications technology integrators. LMT collaborates with defense and home affairs industry institutions and organizations in its design and development of defense innovation solutions, as well as with Riga Technical University for research and development purposes. Currently, LMT is participating in three European projects:
- MUGS – modular autonomous land system development and future development;
- SPARTA – strengthening Europe’s cybersecurity capacity;
- COMP4DRONES – for the development of autonomous drone flight management.
One of the LMT projects is a mission management system, which integrates both interpersonal communication, as well as multiple IoT sensors for increasing the speed of evaluating a situation to allow for more precise decision making. LMT is developing machine vision and machine hearing technologies for the defense industry. Together with Lufthansa Systems, LMT has begun a pilot project in Latvia testing a drone traffic management platform. Similarly, the latest communications solutions make it possible to offer a private internet network and other solutions.
