U.S. Army tests battlefield data network in Hawaii jungle

The U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division tested next-generation command-and-control software during the two-week Nakoa Fleek exercise in Hawaii, which concluded Lightning Surge 5 and certified the 2nd Mobile Brigade. Soldiers connected radios, sensors and command posts, fought a defensive scenario and conducted an air assault while engineers assessed latency, power and connectivity in field conditions. The experiment seeks to deliver a shared battlefield picture from cloud services to small units even when links degrade, with further decision-support and autonomous-network testing planned for Lightning Surge 6.