ARINC’s NGWC mesh tracks 200 vehicles, passes test at Army Depot in Kuwait
ANNAPOLIS, Md., 25 March 2011. ARINC Engineering Services LLC’s NGWC wireless mesh solution for tracking military assets has been demonstrated and reviewed by the U.S. Army Sustainment Command (ASC). ARINC and partners Cubic Global Tracking Solutions (CGTS) and Lunarline conducted a Proof-of-Principle (PoP) demonstration, tracking 200 vehicles through the Army’s Camp Arifjan Wash Rack in Kuwait, a primary trans-shipment point for U.S. materiel.
The NGWC solution, based on advanced mesh network technology from Cubic, has been developed and demonstrated under a series of task orders from the U.S. Army Logistics Innovation Agency as part of the Agency’s Next Generation Wireless Communications for Logistical Applications (NGWC) program.
“The Army Sustainment Command has determined our NGWC mesh network tracking solution improves their wash rack process,” says Robert Higginbotham, senior director, ARINC Advanced Systems. “We expect to hear soon that ASC wants to expand the use of our technology at Camp Arifjan, other Kuwait locations, and possibly into Afghanistan. We are anticipating another task order for this work.”
“Lunarline appreciated the opportunity to support the secure design, implementation, and testing of the DoD Information Assurance (IA) requirements for the program,” says Waylon Krush, CEO of Lunarline.
The NGWC demonstration at Camp Arifjan accurately tracked a sample of 200 vehicles in near real time, from their initial storage locations at incoming Lot 58, through complete cleaning and processing, to outgoing sterile storage lots. The demonstration hardware included rugged battery-powered asset tags with GPS sensor technology and advanced wireless “mesh network” capability that is self-forming and self-healing.
In use, each asset tag transmits its own precise location, and a group of asset tags will self-assemble into a local mesh network to relay all tag locations efficiently. This wireless data is collected by local gateways and sent to a Device Management Center that keeps a central database of all tags and locations. An operator can search for individual assets by their serial numbers and find their locations in a matter of seconds.
The incoming lot at Camp Arifjan can hold 10,000 vehicles; therefore, a full-scale application of ARINC’s NGWC tracking technology would greatly simplify inventory and tracking.
