U.S. Navy’s PMW 160: Bridging Innovation and Networking

U.S. Navy’s PMW 160: Bridging Innovation and Networking The U.S. Navy’s PMW 160 will participate in a business event during the WEST 2024 conference to induct new suppliers as part of Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence’s (PEO C4I’s) outreach during this conference. PMW 160 is the tactical network programs office within the PEO responsible for technology and communications. “We’re down on the floor, and we are engaging with each of those small businesses throughout the afternoon there,” said Capt. Katy Boehme, USN, engineering duty officer at PMW 160. These personal meetings are for conference attendees and will take place on Tuesday, February 13, and Wednesday, February 14, at 12:30 p.m. PT in the Engagement Zone. PEO leaders, as well as other relevant officers, will be present and this will be the largest external event of the year, according to this office. WEST is an event centered on maritime power and will take place between February 13 and 15 in San Diego. PMW 160 has hundreds of business partners to achieve its mission. “We design, develop, test, procure, install and ensure our tactical networks capability,” Capt. Boehme told SIGNAL Media in an interview. “We are essentially delivering the naval operational architecture,” she added. The office is updating its services with emerging technologies and invites businesses to present their innovation. “A new area where we’re looking into is automation … how we test the system, how we determine cybersecurity readiness of the system, how we do maintenance on the system, all of that to increase cyber hygiene across our networks as well as to reduce workload requirements on the sailors themselves and allow them to do what only humans can do right, which may be attending to more of those legacy systems,” Capt. Boehme said. We are essentially delivering the naval operational architecture. Among the systems the office works with is CANES, the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services, which combines legacy systems and cutting-edge technologies. “We are pivoting to a software-defined network implementation with our WAN [wide area network] systems,” Capt. Boehme explained. “And as we go forward, we’re looking to field the hosting platform. I would call it really that infrastructure to support both government routing solutions or government-owned technologies as well as commercial technologies that will provide us flexibility in routing capabilities, and it will also provide us scalability,” Capt. Boehme said. SIGNAL Media is an AFCEA publication. WEST is organized jointly by AFCEA and the U.S. Naval Institute.