1. Military/NATO Applications of Wireless LANs
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Military/NATO Applications of Wireless LANs
Dr. Davras Yavuz
NATO C3 Agency (Formerly SHAPE Technical Center)
CISD Division, Applied CIS Technology Branch
Den Haag, Netherlands Tel: , Fax:
- This paper at
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2. ~ 530 Staff from ~ all NATO nations
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NATO C3 Agency
The Hague, NL (Former STC)
Brussels, BE (NACISA)
~ 530 Staff from ~ all NATO nations
(~ 340 NL, ~190 BE )
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6. Introduction
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Until late 1980s mobile/deployable/tactical operations were national responsibilities - NATO involvement was small
NATO provided primarily strategic & high level command co-ordination/connectivity
In last decade deployed, Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) operations (multi NATO and PfP nations) have become highly significant
May Exercise Combined Endeavor (Baumholder Germany) had 40 nations participating
Hence mobile/deployable operations support is now an important part of our tasking
Mobile/Deployable SATCOM, Wireless comms for HQs, PCS (e.g. GSM), PMR (e.g. TETRA), DTAB, DVB, …
Wireless LAN activities form an important component of these
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7. Mobile/Tactical Comms Divergence
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Mobile/Tactical Comms Divergence
Fixed communications
Fiber-optic/photonic revolution: Essentially unlimited capacity is now possible/available if/when a cable can be installed
Mobile/Tactical communications
No technological revolution similar to photonic foreseen
Radio propagation will be the limiting factor
Mainstay will be radio: Tactical LOS tens/hundreds of Kbps, BLOS (rough terrain and/or long distances) few Kbps
Star-wars scenarios : Moving laser beams ???
LEO satellites will provide some 100s of Kbps at a cost
Divergence will continue
Input into the five senses : appx Shannon/Entropy bps
For transmission redundancy : x = 1 Kbps
Therefore: we must treat mobile/tactical comms differently
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8. Commercial & Military Wireless LAN (WLAN) requirements
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Commercial & Military Wireless LAN (WLAN) requirements
Commercial/Corporate requirements
Higher throughputs
Larger populations of users (rapid office space reconfiguration/move, no wire/fiber infrastructure, “hot desk” policies, …,)
Applications require increasing capacities/digital info exchange
Security with acceptable risk
Low cost, ease of setup/upgrade, … etc.
Military (NATO) requirements
Two types
- Large, essentially static headquarter requirements very similar to commercial/corporate requirements (as above) - in some cases much higher levels of security
- Rapidly deployed headquarters and on-the-move connectivity for relatively short messages with “some” security
Tactical information generally needs to be protected for short periods
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9. We concentrate on the second:
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We concentrate on the second:
Rapidly deployed headquarters and on-the-move connectivity for relatively short messages with “acceptable” security
Tactical information is generally highly “perishable” and time dependent : needs to be protected for short periods
Commercial/COTS security “may be” acceptable ?
2 Kbyte text messages sent in a few msecs can typically replace voice messages of many minutes
Electronic detection, jamming : Microwave ovens
Moving WLAN frequency band reduces “microwave-oven jammer” threat. Moving it to lower frequencies (e.g. MIL UHF band
Mhz) also provides propagation/penetration advantages
especially in forest (Norway: wet, iced, …) environments
En-route Mission Planning and Rehearsal System (EMPRS) demonstrated during US Army Comms - Electronics Command’s (CECOM) Joint Contingency Force Advanced Warfighting Experiment (JCFAWE)
Can also be potentially linked to GBS (Global Broadcast System) & TACSAT
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10. 2.4 GHz ISM Band Allocations
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2.4 GHz ISM Band Allocations
USA GHz (BW MHz)
Most of Europe as USA
Japan GHz (26 MHz)
France GHz (37 MHz)
Spain GHz (30 MHz) …...
Was essentially driven by the initiation of microwave-oven
manufacturing/proliferation ~ 3 decades ago
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11. 225 - 400 MHz Band Harmonized Military Band within NATO
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Harmonized Military Band within NATO
Radio navigation band MHz
& recently assigned to emergency digital land systems (e.g. TETRA)
& MIL-TETRA by some nations
Many A/G/A & UHF SATCOM assignments
e.g ~ A/G/A assignments (each 25 KHz)
HaveQuick & SATURN hopsets
Various military radio relay assignments
Realistically we should consider MHz as the “Military” band available to NATO nations in future
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15. Wireless LAN connection
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Slide Title
Wireless LAN connection
between aircraft
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18. Does knowing the algorithm make a cipher implementation vulnerable ?
Security
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Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
Can be compromised by recording traffic over the network
Requires few days to many hours of recording - higher the data rate smaller the recording period
Updates being worked on
Rijndael - Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
Replacement for DES
NIST competition announced in 1997
Many submissions from 11 countries
Winner announced Oct 2000
Rijndael (Vincent Rijmen & Joan Daemen (BE)
Does knowing the algorithm make a cipher implementation vulnerable ?
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Conclusions
There is a dichotomy between corporate/COTS needs for WLANs and one important class of military requirements
Wireless connectivity for a small (at most few tens) number of users/units on-the-move and for rapid deployment/redeployment in e.g. forest (dense, wet, iced) environments
in the MIL UHF band ( /380 MHz) is a good solution - spectrum clearance ?
Removes microwave-jammer threat, longer propagation ranges
Small but important market
Security
Improved WEP
Rijndael / AES
Paper & these slides may be found at
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