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the advanced technologies being developed to realize the mili- tary communications ... In the second article, communications among UAVs, and between UAVs ... wireless tactical radio within military camps is discussed. In the fifth and final ...
LYT-GUEST EDIT-Maseng_Layout 1 9/20/12 3:58 PM Page 36

GUEST EDITORIAL

MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS

Torleiv Maseng

M

Randall Landry

ilitary organizations throughout the world increasingly rely on a robust and adaptable communications environment to enable information sharing. The five articles that make up this year’s Feature Topic on Military Communications illustrate the challenges being addressed and the advanced technologies being developed to realize the military communications infrastructure of the future. Around 4000 roadside bomb incidents are reported in Afghanistan per year. This is a serious problem for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. These bombs are radiocontrolled and triggered remotely. If this radio link can be blocked by jamming, detonation is prevented. In the first article by Jan Mietzner et al., an intelligent jammer is described. This is composed of a receiver part analyzing potential suspicious signals and a transmitter, which prevents the receiver at the bomb receiving the trigger signal. These operations are performed quickly without waste of power and are efficient resulting in saved lives. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) play a big role in tactical networks. In the second article, communications among UAVs, and between UAVs and ground links has been tested by using middleware technology developed by Rockwell-Collins funded by DARPA with the purpose of developing robust tactical radio links to be deployed on UAVs, weapon systems, and dismounted soldier backpacks. The article by Niranjan Suri et al. presents lessons learned and discusses essential components of middleware for UAV communications. In the third article by Murat Uysal and Mohammad R. Heidarpour, innovative techniques for improving HF communications are presented along with a tutorial of past to future generation systems. These are cooperative techniques like an early cognitive radio technique called Automatic Link Establishment for choosing the best frequency and relaying messages between HF stations to improve range and using OFDM to increase rate. By using nearvertical incidence sky wave communication, umbrella-like coverage is obtained as far as 300 km. Modern medical equipment is composed of a variety of electronics causing interference to communications systems. Examples are high-voltage equipment for x-ray, electric motors for different kinds of infusion pumps, ventilators, and personal computers. The interference levels from medical devices are large compared to military specified electronics. In the fourth article by Peter Stenumgaard et al., safety limits for interference-free communications between medical equipment and wireless tactical radio within military camps is discussed. In the fifth and final article by Bow-Nan Cheng et al., three types of routing protocols for tactical IP-based networks are compared. Since military links are very different, composed of HF, LOS, fiber, and satellite, operating these heterogeneous networks is a challenge. The three protocols selected differ in terms of flow

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Kenneth Young

control, ability to handle multicast flows, and ability to use metrics. Their ability to handle multi-topology routing based on some preplanned load cases appear to be promising, and the article offers new knowledge resulting in the desire for more knowledge. For the next feature issue of military communications to be published in one year from now, we encourage papers in the field of military communication to be submitted before 1 April 2013.

BIOGRAPHIES TORLEIV MASENG ([email protected]) is director of research at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, where he is responsible for communications and information systems. He worked as a scientist at SINTEF in Trondheim for 10 years, involved in design and standardization of GSM. For seven years he was a scientist at the NC3A NATO research center in The Hague. During 1992–1994 he was involved in the startup of the new private mobile operator NetCom GSM in Norway, where he had technical responsibility. Since 1994 he has held a chair in radio communications at the University of Lund, Sweden. In 1996 he took up his employment at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (FFI) located at Kjeller, 20 km outside Oslo. Since 2005 he is also Professor II at the University of Oslo. He is the author of more than 150 papers, holds patents, and is a Technical Editor of IEEE Communications Magazine. He has received an award for outstanding research and has arranged large international conferences. RANDALL LANDRY ([email protected]) received his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Vermont in 1992 and 1994. He is currently with the MITRE Corporation in Bedford, Massachusetts, where he serves as program director for a portfolio of programs that deliver ground-based communications capabilities to Air Force users in garrison and deployed. He has also served as department head for Communications and Networking and conducted research in support of the U.S. Department of Defense. As a member of corporate R&D at Texas Instruments in Dallas, he was previously involved in research and development of highly integrated switching architectures for gigabit networking and holds several patents in this area. He has also served as director of optical and wireless networking in the telecommunications industry. He has been the principal investigator on a number of research programs ranging from satellite communications to tactical wireless networking. Recent research interests focus on network science, autonomic networking, cross-layer design methodologies, dynamic resource management in wireless networks, and the performance evaluation of multihop wireless networks. He has published numerous technical articles and served as technical program committee member and session organizer for major IEEE Communications Society conferences. KENNETH YOUNG [SM] is executive director for Government Project Development in the Applied Research organization at Applied Communication Sciences, Piscataway, New Jersey. He received his B.S. in physics from St. Joseph’s University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are in the design and application of mobile ad hoc networking technology for tactical environments. He is the program manager for the Army Research Laboratory’s Communications and Networks Collaborative Technology Alliance, a government-industry-academic consortium that performs basic research in survivable wireless mobile networking, signal processing, and tactical information protection. He heads another team developing advanced mobile technology under the U.S. Army CERDEC’s Proactive Integrated Link Selection for Network Robustness program. He chairs the Communications Society’s Tactical Communications and Operations Technical Committee and is on the advisory board for the Military Communications (MILCOM) Conference. He is a Telcordia Fellow.

IEEE Communications Magazine • October 2012