Empowering Troops, Enhancing Battlespace Awareness With Private Wireless
The advent of 5G technology already enables high bandwidth data communications throughout civil society. Less recognized is that private wireless is having a significant impact on modern warfare, fundamentally changing how battles are fought. Dedicated, secure communication infrastructure can empower troops on the ground and revolutionize situational awareness through real-time data sharing, improved sensor integration and advanced augmented reality. The Department of Defense (DoD) is exploring the many ways 5G technology can be leveraged in the battlespace.
The Limits of the Status Quo
For more than a century, the military has relied on radio communications. While radio technology has advanced well beyond its earliest days with vacuum tubes, there are inherent limitations to analog communications.
For instance, communication in the battlespace currently works in a meshed, hub-and-spoke network and can pass a small amount of data. Digital tactical radios can move some data, but the overall system bandwidth declines as more radios are added. Traditional voice-oriented systems such as land mobile radio are limited to just 16 channels for communication. Meanwhile, the hub-and-spoke design creates choke points in the middle of the mesh, limiting the number of devices that can be supported.
Tactical radios are expensive, exquisite devices produced in relatively low volume, incorporating proprietary technology to avoid being detected, intercepted or jammed. This presents a challenge when working with allies and partners, as well, because of the radios’ proprietary construction; there has to be a radio “gateway” in the middle of the mesh to receive and forward traffic from partner militaries, creating that choke point.
Radio communication has another drawback; the devices can block each other. In radio, the parties trying to communicate have to take turns. The simplest example is the walkie-talkie. If two people push the Talk button at the same time, the signals collide and don’t send anything. This could be disastrous on the battlefield. Even in a non-military setting, such as responding to a natural disaster, this can hinder communication.
Finally, despite investing in exquisite tactical radios, any near-peer adversary the U.S. military may face has already signatured the radios and waveforms we use; they are likely to have already created tools and techniques for detecting and jamming them.
Building a Better Battlespace Network
Moving to a 5G private wireless network addresses all the problems inherent in digital tactical radios. (This applies to 4G, 5G and 3GPP networks, but 5G is the term that is most familiar.)
Current 5G technology can deliver up to gigabytes-per-second throughput, an order of magnitude greater than digital tactical radios can handle. This is important for a modern fight where the ability to sense, make sense and act is increasingly dependent on data acquisition from sensors, video surveillance and other intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms. Tactical radios can move data but at a much lower bandwidth, and because they typically mesh the system, bandwidth declines as more radios are added.
A 5G private network can support thousands of devices communicating simultaneously without blocking each other. For the U.S. military, that means there could be hundreds of warfighters simultaneously communicating or viewing the same video. In a complex and crowded battlespace, the ability to share situational awareness with everyone is critical.
As for cost, the broad 5G ecosystem is producing state-of-the-art devices in the millions each year; the result is low-cost devices with incredible capabilities, i.e., smartphones. This allows all warfighters to be equipped with communications using a device they have used their entire lives. While the U.S. military likely would issue smartphones equipped for warfighters, the advantage to using commercially available equipment is particularly apparent in working with allies and partners; they would not receive the military-issued smartphones, but they could use their own and connect to the U.S.-operated private network. The same cannot be said for the proprietary digital tactical radios currently in use.
This scenario—a blend of government-issued and bring your own smartphones that can share a 5G network—also is applicable in domestic circumstances, such as firefighting out West.
“In those situations, you’ll have National Guard plus local firefighting units,” said Steve Vogelsang, chief technology officer for Nokia Federal Solutions. “In an emergency situation where you have different units, just issue SIM cards to the local firefighters.”
Tactically, 4G and 5G signals are ubiquitous and are not being jammed. A real-world example: Ukraine’s military forces often use radios as decoys to draw attention away from where they are actually located. Those signals stand out and are easy for their adversaries to spot.
“We … know that the commercial 4G and 5G networks are not being destroyed or jammed because both sides are using them in their PACE [primary, alternate, contingency, emergency] plans. Things are going to get jammed or break, so you want to have multiple ways to communicate,” Vogelsang said. “This way is risky, as it may expose warfighters to being identified and tracked by an adversary that has infiltrated the public 5G network or who operates the network. By creating a private 5G network and blending into the sea of these signals, the warfighters can operate safely and effectively. The network core is with the warfighters and cannot be infiltrated.”
Another advantage to a 5G private network is the prospect of improved security. Vogelsang said commercial solutions for classified (CSfC) systems can be used to encrypt traffic and connect to “red” networks, which contain classified yet unencrypted data. This solution can be implemented on the end user device—in this case, a smartphone—or in, or adjacent to, the private 5G system.
“In some battlefield settings, commercial encryption might be sufficient even without CSfC because the ISR data is actionable for a short period of time, and the C2 [command and control] data is also short-lived,” he explained. “By the time somebody cracks the encryption, the action resulting from C2 is history.”
One great use case for 5G on the battlefield is the opportunity to integrate satellite communications (satcom), Vogelsang said. A single satcom terminal connecting into the 5G network enables every user with a smartphone to access the satcom link, and the capability of the terminal is expanded by extending it to 5G devices.
The creation and use of a 5G private network fits neatly into the U.S. military’s vision for the combined joint all-domain command and control (CJADC2) initiative that embodies “sense, make sense and act.” Nokia’s Vogelsang said he believes 5G is integral to CJADC2 because “it enables high bandwidth for increased collection of data to sense, and it enables rapid dissemination of information both to the command post and directly to warfighters” to make sense. In essence, the warfighter can see what the commander sees.
Implementing a 5G Private Network in the Battlespace
Getting a 5G private network up and running for the warfighters must take into consideration the size, weight and power needs. Nokia, for instance, makes a complete 5G “network in a box” called Banshee that can be stationary, mounted on a vehicle or in a man-portable backpack and can be powered by a vehicle or by batteries.
“Typically, you have the core network in a data center somewhere; we’ve got it compressed down” to bring it into the battlespace, Vogelsang said.
The cost equation is pretty straightforward, he added.
“Banshee will cost more than a single mesh radio, but only one warfighter can use the mesh radio. Two Banshee devices can support 2,500 [or more] users. The military isn’t equipping every warfighter with comms, [but] with these systems, we can equip every warfighter, and with a device [smartphone] they already know how to use,” Vogelsang said.
Conclusion
Delivering 5G to the battlespace is cost effective, feasible and builds on the warfighters’ familiarity with smartphones. It is a critical element in building the CJADC2 environment and maintaining capabilities in a conflict with near-peer adversaries.
Bringing private network capabilities to the battlefield and providing warfighters access to the same information as their commanders empowers everyone in the chain of command. Having this doesn’t mean “act on your own,” Vogelsang said, but it does ensure everyone is acting on the same information at the same time.
As a use case example, putting up a surveillance drone and sharing the information widely still leaves the decision up to the commander, but the warfighters on the ground will understand the decision better. It also speeds up the decision-making process because the actionable information has already been shared; the warfighters just wait for directions on the actions to take.
5G will take its place in military force structure for communications. Now it’s up to government and industry to partner and make it happen at the speed of relevance.
For more information:
nokia.com/industries/defense
