Federated Wireless announced it will provide critical technologies and commercial support to the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) for a National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator grant to develop new technologies enabling secure military and government communications over 5G networks globally.

This is Phase 2 of an initial NSF award to CU Boulder and Federated Wireless in September 2022.

"The goal of the work is to ensure a range of users, from U.S. soldiers to commercial enterprises, can use 5G cellular networks in other countries, without those countries being able to extract valuable operational information. We are honored to have been again selected by CU Boulder and the NSF to strengthen security for 5G networks," said Kurt Schaubach, Chief Technology Officer at Federated Wireless.

Federated Wireless will support the 5G Hidden Operations through Securing Traffic (GHOST) project, intended to ensure American soldiers, government operators and critical infrastructure can securely use 5G networks globally, even if they are deployed by potentially adversarial nations. The technologies explored will include disguising and anonymizing user identities and traffic to prevent surveillance and analysis by hostile parties.

"GHOST addresses the core challenge of providing secure communications over untrusted networks," said Keith Gremban, lead researcher on the project for University of Colorado. "At the end of this phase, we'll demonstrate a working integrated prototype that demonstrates GHOST concepts."

"We are extremely pleased to have Federated Wireless on board for their communications expertise and capabilities in rapidly prototyping and demonstrating cutting-edge 5G concepts," said Gremban. "Their involvement helps enable us to build a prototype capable of securing 5G communications in the most difficult environments."

The team received a Phase 1 grant last year for initial development of the technology. The new $5 million award is to combine the different components they have created into a single suite and commercialize the product.