Third Annual NATO Exercise In Latvia To Test Comms Tech

NATO's cutting-edge communications capabilities will be tested when the latest Digital Backbone Experiment (DiBaX) is staged in Latvia next month.

At the end of October representatives from a range of NATO allies will again converge on the country’s Ādaži military base to test new technologies such as 5G mobile fifth-generation mobile telecommunications and low-earth-orbit satellites.

Multi-domain operations will be the key focus of this year’s exercise, aiming for seamless interconnectivity of forces operating across land, maritime, air, space, and cyber domains.

DiBaX aims to showcase the latest progression of digital technology and demonstrate how it can be integrated to boost the interoperability and efficiency of NATO forces and allied friendly nations. Industry partner Latvian Mobile Telephone (LMT) is again playing a leading role in helping to stage the event by providing the state-of-the-art 5G Test Site.

Its Head of Business Defence Kaspars Pollaks commented: “This year's focus on multi-domain operations means greater involvement of different assets — from different domain assets to unmanned systems and various communication technologies.

“Tremendous work has to be done to bring it all together and successfully execute the experiment in October.”

And Warren Low at NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT) said: "In areas where there are battle groups in various countries, including Latvia, interoperability would be a key enabler in terms of bringing in forces and having those forces work together effectively.
 

“We look forward to working with the Latvian Ministry of Defence, the Latvian National Armed Forces, other nations, and the test bed provider LMT.”

Defence Minister Andris Sprūds said: “Latvia has already demonstrated its high-end capabilities in the 5G technologies, including within multinational projects and with international partners by providing a platform for… testing and experimentation."

• You can read more details on the Latvian Ministry of Defence website