Instead of trying to prevent the Federal Communications Commission from auctioning C-band spectrum (used for 5G), the Department of Defense is instead pivoting to study the effect deploying the technology in urban areas impact military aircrafts, Defense News reports.
Officials have warned that 5G may interfere with radar altimeters, which are used in aircrafts to measure the distance between the aircraft and the ground.
“The approach should be not on trying to slow down 5G metro deployment, but speeding up development and testing of mitigations that can serve as an interim gap until avionics manufacturers can harden their systems,” said Alan Burke, the Pentagon’s chair for the interagency Aviation Cyber Initiative Task Force.
Military aviation officials say cargo planes and aerial refueling tankers would be the most impacted category for 5G interference. While military aircraft systems currently have the capability to detect high powered microwave and high intensity radiation frequencies, the DoD doesn’t fully understand the impact of 5G interference on current technologies.
“The paradigm in general is we test the devices to make sure that they’re transmitting in their assigned bands and operating in their assigned bands. What we normally haven’t been testing for is what we call out-of-band interference,” said Burke. “They’re going to have to relook at the design of devices to be more spectrum resilient.”
Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Alana Langdon
