Tactical Wireless Communications and Networks: Design Concepts and Challenges

Chapter 10

Bringing Commercial Cellular Capabilities to Tactical Networks

Now that we have covered the open architecture approach, we are ready to see how commercial cellular capabilities can be part of the tactical theater communications infrastructure. Commercial cellular brings many benefits to the tactical theater, such as low cost, application richness, maturity, and familiarity of use. The current generation of warfighters can greatly benefit from the use of smartphones, given the additional features they provide. Smartphones are putting never-before-seen communications capabilities into the hands of new tactical users. These include, but are not limited to, voice and command and control (C2) data, social networking, anthropological decision aids, real-time data feeds (from airborne and ground-based sensors), and remote controls of unmanned vehicular platforms. Deployment of these technologies presents a variety of challenges, such as environmental considerations, energy longevity, and spectrum management. However, security considerations, information assurance (IA) and network operations (NetOps) are the most crucial needing to be addressed since they play a major role in ensuring that the missions are not compromised. This chapter presents a comprehensive architecture that would support tactical deployment of smartphones while highlighting the critical areas needing attention. This approach is built on the open architecture principles discussed in the previous two chapters. ...