- The US government is working to integrate 5G into technology that addresses environmental hazards.
- The Navy is working with an Energy Department subsidiary on 5G tech meant to detect marine life.
- Another lab is testing 5G to contain nuclear waste leaks and more efficiently dispose of bombs.
- This article is part of "How 5G Is Changing Everything," a series about transformational 5G tech across industries.
In the frigid waters of Washington state's Puget Sound, the US Navy has placed sensors to detect marine mammals. If harbor seals or a pod of orcas go by, the Navy is notified so its ships and submarines can avoid the animals.
Lately, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Keyport, Washington, which develops advanced underwater technology, has been working alongside the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to utilize 5G, so marine mammal monitoring and other projects will become faster and more efficient.
The partner lab, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, southeast of Seattle, is the site of the 5G Innovation Studio, operated in partnership with Verizon.
The studio, which opened in 2020, operates closely with a division of the PNNL that works on Internet of Things devices and the lab's test track, where Department of Energy scientists test new technology, mainly in radiation detection. The lab collaborates with other government agencies to weave the latest 5G technology into their operations and has worked on projects ranging from underwater sensors to land-based bomb-disposal robots.
In coordination with the PNNL and the 5G Open Innovation Lab, the NUWC is working on ways for the Navy to use 5G for piloting autonomous vehicles, remote environmental monitoring, and marine-mammal detection. Brad Bittle, the principal engineer for the Undersea Test Ranges and Fleet Readiness Division at NUWC Keyport, said 5G could modernize the Navy's undersea systems without invasive environmental operations like digging trenches for underwater cables.
"We don't want to bring 4G, 3G mindsets into this," Bittle said. "We want to have a white sheet of paper that if somebody has an idea, they could plug it in and have the sandbox to try it out and really try to unleash the potential of future-generation wireless technologies."
The Navy is particularly interested in working on 5G underwater, where it could enable faster data collection and analysis, more efficient environmental monitoring, and better communication with the Navy's underwater assets.
The PNNL is also working on 5G projects with statewide agencies, like the Washington State Patrol, where the studio has discussed a 5G-upgraded bomb-disposal robot.
Typically, bomb-disposal robots work by sending a gray-scale video feed back to the human operator working to disable the explosive device, according to Scott Godwin, the director of advanced wireless communications at the PNNL. The robots are slow and top-heavy — sometimes tipping over when they hit a crack in the road. But the studio has developed a robot that's quicker and more effective because of upgraded video.
With the new robots, the operator, using a virtual-reality headset, has a 360-degree view captured by six cameras. With 5G's low latency, the operator can respond to the video feeds essentially in real time.
"This space is likely to change dramatically in the next five years," Godwin said of 5G.
The PNNL also discussed 5G solutions at the Hanford Site, a decommissioned nuclear-production complex along the Columbia River north of Richland that was used during World War II's Manhattan Project and throughout the Cold War. Hanford is also one of the largest and costliest environmental-cleanup sites in the world after radioactive and chemical waste contaminated the nearby land and groundwater.
Godwin said the 5G Innovation Studio worked on a robot that could drop between the double shells of the tanks storing nuclear waste so operators could check for leaks. Thus far, the studio has developed an initial proposal, a pilot process, and demonstrated the robot at work.
"It's these kinds of operations that haven't been possible in slower 4G or other wireless networks," Godwin said, "and this is really what's coming with 5G."