Jill Schramm/MDN Persistent Systems CEO and founder Herb Rubens is joined by the company’s local employees as he cuts the ribbon at a grand opening of an office/shop building Wednesday in Minot.

A New York-based technology company held a grand opening Wednesday for a Minot office that will support a new mobile communications system to serve Air Force field operations.

Persistent Systems recently was awarded a $75.7 million contract with the Air Force to upgrade communication technology, including voice, video, chat and GPS data, for Minot Air Force Base, Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana and F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.

In the Minot office, Persistent Systems has hired six employees who all have experience from having been stationed with the Air Force in Minot in the past. Two additional employees will be hired later this year. Employees will have a variety of duties, including overseeing field installations by a contractor and installing communications equipment in vehicles, said Douglas Brown, director of Programs for Persistent Systems.

The network will include tower equipment and mobile equipment in about 300 Air Force vehicles.

Brown said the current commercial cellular and land mobile radio systems being used by airmen and Security Forces at the three air bases is not reliable. Persistent Systems will be building a new infrastructure of mobile ad hoc networking (MANET) technology.

“Wave Relay is our brand, and it is going to provide a cellular-like coverage over the entire missile field,” Brown said.

“It’s going to provide full situational awareness for the Security Forces when they are out and about in the field,” he added. “It’s providing, really, a broadband network and capability throughout the entire missile field.”

According to Persistent Systems, besides providing situational awareness in the field, the infrastructure will link multiple weapon systems and programs in a unified network to provide the foundation on which a true Joint All Domain Command and Control system could be built.

Brian Soles, vice president of Government & Military Relations and Business Strategy with Persistent Systems, said the company’s uniqueness is its ability to bring together disparate communications architectures that are basic and aging into a common, modern network. The network can include aircraft in its communication bubble, along with video feeds from launch sites and other sensor data. Even drones and robots can be added, depending on where the future goes, he said.

Brown said work in the Minot area should start this summer and be completed in the summer of 2025.

Persistent Systems, which has conducted a number of projects through the U.S. Department of Defense, is about a year and half into the first phases of build-out at Malmstrom. Brown said Malmstrom has been the trial project because its mountainous terrain presents special challenges.

This new Regional Operation Network will be installed at the three base sites over the next few years to deliver 25,000 square miles of coverage, connecting 75 operation centers and more than 1,000 Security Force vehicles into one Battlespace Awareness Network – the largest MANET network in the world.