[SatNews] ARINC Engineering Services, LLC will expand its primary role in developing an advanced global tracking capability for military assets, under the U.S. Army’s Next Generation Wireless Communications (NGWC) program.

The NGWC program seeks to provide secure, continuous visibility of U.S. military assets in use, transit, or storage anywhere in the world. Following receipt of two recent NGWC task orders, ARINC and its development partner Cubic Global Tracking Solutions (Cubic GTS) will enhance the capabilities of their secure wireless mesh network solution, and conduct a formal proof-of-principle demonstration for the U.S. Army at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait in early 2011. Camp Arifjan is a major exit point for U.S. Army equipment leaving the Iraq theater. The NGWC mesh network capability is based on GPS-equipped asset tags and technology from Cubic GTS to track the location of U.S. Army assets, such as vehicles and supplies anywhere on the globe. Unlike other solutions, the NGWC asset tags can configure automatically into an ad hoc local network, without the need for a master controller or fixed infrastructure.

ARINC demonstrated an earlier version of its tracking system in May of 2009, tracking military equipment during a 250-mile sea voyage from Norfolk, VA, to Camp LeJeune, NC, as part of the JLOTS 2009 military exercise. ARINC also showed the system at Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (CWID) 2010 to demonstrate the asset visibility advantages of the wireless mesh network compared with RFID-based tracking systems. The CWID Joint Management Office (JMO) identified the NGWC system as a Top Performing Technology.