EpiSci to develop emulated LTE analysis environment for US Army SBIR

The US Army has awarded a new contract to InterDigital partner EpiSys Science (EpiSci) for the development of an emulated long-term evolution (LTE) analysis environment.

Awarded under the US Army Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programme, the contract will involve the designing of a high-fidelity LTE/5G protocol modelling module for the Extended Mobile Ad hoc Network Emulator (EMANE) platform.

The LTE/5G module is capable of deploying a full LTE architecture on self-contained commodity personal computer hardware, with assistance from mobile technology company InterDigital’s LTE expert team.

EMANE is an open-source modelling and simulation system that supports rapid research and experimentation for a wide range of wireless network systems at a low cost.

InterDigital director engineering William Lawton said: “We understand that bringing commercial wireless systems such as 5G and LTE into a wide range of tactical communications is important for future needs.

“With our experience in developing operational LTE networks, we will support our partner EpiSci in the design of a LTE emulation system for the US Army.”

Under the scope of the project, InterDigital will initially deliver technical assistance to EpiSci on the development of the baseline LTE/5G Physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) models in EMANE, along with helping on the selection and integration of open-source LTE/5G higher-layer protocol models.

In the future, the two companies also intend to significantly improve the design of the LTE emulation system by upgrading and delivering the working emulation environment system.