From January 28th to 30th, the 5G Communications for Peacekeeping and Defence (5G COMPAD) project partners convened in Genoa, Italy, for a Stakeholder Advisory Board meeting and a local demonstration. The event brought together key stakeholders, including representatives from supporting Defence ministries, to discuss the project’s progress and future developments. The discussions and demonstration took place at the headquarters of Leonardo, one of the 5G COMPAD partners.

The meeting provided an opportunity to review the progress achieved over the past year, particularly the results of the first Global Demonstration, which took place in October 2024 in Riga, Latvia. Stakeholders were also presented with preliminary project recommendations and engaged in discussions on the upcoming Global Demonstrations, scheduled for the second half of 2025.

As part of the local demonstration, Leonardo showcased various solutions designed for multi-domain operations. In collaboration with project partners Ericsson, Thales SIX, Thales Italia and its subcontractor CNIT, the demonstration focused on key capabilities related to Deployable Command Posts. These updates include MCX (Mission Critical Communications), advanced 5G quality of service (QoS) — enabling the prioritisation of mission-critical users during admission, the pre-emption of non-mission critical users to ensure mission-critical operations, and the allocation of dedicated network resources via RAN slicing – military encryption (NINE based), IoT gateways, video surveillance, and 5G security assurance verification. These advancements highlight the critical role of secure, resilient, and high-performance 5G communication solutions in modern defence and peacekeeping operations.