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Connecting the Battlespace: �C2 and IoT Technical Interoperability in �Tactical Federated Environments

Marco Manso (marco@particle-summary.pt), Barbara Guerra (PARTICLE SUMMARY Ltd., PORTUGAL)

Janusz Furtak (Military University of Technology of Poland, POLAND)

Frank T. Johnsen (Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), NORWAY)

James Michaelis (U.S. Army Research Laboratory, USA)

Daniel Ota (Fraunhofer FKIE, GERMANY)

Niranjan Suri (U.S. Army Research Laboratory / Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, USA)

Konrad Wrona (NATO Cyber Security Centre, THE NETHERLANDS)

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Outline

  • Background and Motivation
  • Connecting the Battlespace
  • Experiment design
  • Conclusion
  • Q&A / Contacts

This work has been performed in context of the NATO research task group IST-176 on “Federated. Interoperability of Military C2 and IoT Systems”

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Background and Motivation

  • We live in a more connected world
  • The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming�ubiquitous
  • Exploit the battlefield: support commanders �using as many available sources as possible
  • Work from NATO IST-147: investigated coalition �operations in smart cities, integrating IoT into a military information flow (see figure).
  • Work in NATO IST-176 “Federated Interoperability of Military C2 and IoT Systems” explores explore different aspects of interoperability for using IoT information in military systems, like C2 systems.

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Background and Motivation

  • We live in a more connected world
  • The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming�ubiquitous
  • Exploit the battlefield: support commanders �using as many available sources as possible
  • Work from NATO IST-147: investigated coalition �operations in smart cities, integrating IoT into a military information flow (see figure).
  • Work in NATO IST-176 “Federated Interoperability of Military C2 and IoT Systems” explores explore different aspects of interoperability for using IoT information in military systems, like C2 systems.

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Background and Motivation

  • IST-176 is primarily investigating the technological aspects of interoperability.
  • As part of its experimentation campaign, it addresses the technological dimension organised into multiple "stacks”, as shown in the next table.

Technology Stack

Comments

Experimentation campaign plan

Hardware

See 3.1 and 3.2

Use COTS: IoT hardware, wearables, sensors, gateways

Communications and Middleware

See 3.3.1 and 3.3.2

Use open standards and COTS: Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, MQTT

Applications

See 4.2.2

Demonstration using existing C2 and IoT tools and systems

Security

See 3.4

Define the theoretical framework to demonstrate in experiments.

This paper

This paper

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Connecting the Battlespace

Connected Soldiers

​

​

IoT Connected Battlespace

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Connecting the Battlespace

Layer

Protocol

Notes

Network

IP

Recommended by NC3A

Transport

TCP

Reliability, fit for stable networks

UDP

Not reliable, efficient, fit for DIL networks

Application

MQTT

Fit for small size messages (<KB)

Supports periodic updates (every second)

WebRTC

Fit for multimedia (audio, video, data)

RTSP

Fit for legacy digital CCTV systems

Websockets

Fit for data streaming

Enabling Technologies

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Security Considerations

Issues Investigated:

    • Domain Characteristics
    • Trusted vs. Untrusted Data
    • Secure Federated IoT Environment

Distributed ledger-based key management

and authentication for federated IoT environments

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Security Considerations

Issues Investigated:

    • Domain Characteristics
    • Trusted vs. Untrusted Data
    • Secure Federated IoT Environment

Distributed ledger-based key management

and authentication for federated IoT environments

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Security Considerations

Issues Investigated:

    • Domain Characteristics
    • Trusted vs. Untrusted Data
    • Secure Federated IoT Environment

Distributed ledger-based key management

and authentication for federated IoT environments

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Security Considerations

Issues Investigated:

    • Domain Characteristics
    • Trusted vs. Untrusted Data
    • Secure Federated IoT Environment

Distributed ledger-based key management

and authentication for federated IoT environments

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Experiment Design

  • Multi-nation deployment
  • Federation-based
  • Brokers:
    • PARTICLE (Portugal)
    • MUT (Poland)
    • IHMC (U.S.A.)
    • FFI (Norway)
    • Fraunhofer FKIE (Germany)

TOPIC Structure:

​

Country-code/organisation-id/device-id

/info

/location

/vitals

/image

/…

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Experiment Design

  • Data Injection:
    • Real data (smart city IoT sensors like CCTV)
    • Simulated data (soldiers, vitals, pictures; vehicles)

​

  • Situational Awareness components

​

PARTICLE AWARE

U.S. ARL ATAK Display

Fraunhofer FKIE �adapted SitaWare

FFI CAGED SA (left side) and

Metis SA in HQ (right side)

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Experiment Design

  • ASSESSMENT: MEASURES OF MERIT AND PERFORMANCE
    • MoM.1: Percentage (%) of messages successfully delivered to all nations
    • MoP.1: Average delay (in ms) in delivering messages to all nations
    • MoM.2: Generation of consistent tactical picture across different solutions

​

    • Additional variations in the experiments are being analysed

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Conclusion

  • We explored the application of IoT and connected forces for exploiting the battlespace and thus gaining information dominance through improved and enhanced shared situational awareness.
  • We presented an approach to connect different kinds of assets that rely on widely used and standardized technologies, thus facilitating information exchange and interoperability.
  • The approach will be demonstrated by a set of experiments conducted as part of the IST-176 group, where different systems – each run by its respective nation – are deployed in a federated environment.
  • In the context of multi-national deployments, the approach can be effective in supporting collective C2, where each nation has their own tactical infrastructure.

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References

  1. Bassoli, Riccardo. Frank H.P. Fitzek, Emilio Calvanese Strinati. 2021. Why do we need 6G? ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies, Volume 2 (2021), Issue 6 - Wireless communication systems in beyond 5G era, Pages 1-31. Date of publication: 13 September 2021. DOI : https://doi.org/10.52953/IROR5894
  2. Janusz, F., Zieliński Zbigniew, Chudzikiewicz Jan. 2019. A Framework for Constructing a Secure Domain of Sensor Nodes. Sensors 19(12), pp. 2797. DOI:10.3390/s19122797
  3. Furtak, J. 2020. Cryptographic Keys Generating and Renewing System for IoT Network Nodes—A Concept. Sensors 20, no. 17: 5012. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20175012
  4. Johnsen, F. T., et al. 2018. Application of IoT in military operations in a smart city. In: 2018 International Conference on Military Communications and Information Systems (ICMCIS). IEEE, DOI: 10.1109/ICMCIS.2018.8398690.
  5. Johnsen, F., Manso, M., Jansen, N. 2020. Evaluation of Message Broker approaches for Information Exchange in Disadvantaged Tactical Networks in a Federated Environment. International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (ICCRTS). 25th ICCRTS Proceedings.
  6. Johnsen, F. and Frøseth, I. 2019. SMART II: Android apps, cloud computing and mobile device management as enablers for efficient operations, 24th International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (ICCRTS), October 29-31 2019, Laurel, Maryland, USA.
  7. Johnsen, F., Brannsten, M. R., Elstad, A.-K., Bloebaum, T. H., and Mancini, F. 2017. Smart: Situational awareness experiments with the norwegian home guard using android. FFI report 17/00735, April 2017, https://publications.ffi.no/nb/item/asset/dspace:2667/17-00735.pdf
  8. IST-150. 2021. NATO Core Services Profiling for Hybrid Tactical Networks. STO TECHNICAL REPORT. Published March 2021. ISBN 978-92-837-2328-8
  9. Manso M., Johnsen, Frank T., Brannsten, M. 2017. A Smart Devices Concept for Future Soldier Systems. ICCRTS 2017, Los Angeles, USA, November 6-8, 2017.
  10. Marco, M., Johnsen, F., Lund, K., Chan. K. 2018. Using MQTT to Support Mobile Tactical Force Situational Awareness. 2018 Military Communications and Information Systems ICMCIS (former MCC), 22nd - 23rd May 2018, Warsaw, Poland
  11. Pradhan, M. 2021. Interoperability for Disaster Relief Operations in Smart City Environments. PhD Thesis, The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Department of Technology Systems, University of Oslo, April 2021
  12. Langleite, R., Carsten Griwodz and Frank T. Johnsen. 2021. Military Applications of Internet of Things: Operational Concerns Explored in Context of a Prototype Wearable. ICCRTS 2021 (virtual)
  13. Reding, D. F. and Eaton, J. 2020. Science & Technology Trends 2020-2040. In: NATO Science & Technology Organization, Office of the Chief Scientist, Brussels, Belgium.
  14. NATO. 2022a. “Federated Mission Networking”. Available at: https://www.act.nato.int/activities/fmn. Online article. Accessed at: 10-Aug-2022
  15. NATO. 2022b. “Interoperability: connecting forces”. Date: 22-Feb-2022. Online article. Available at: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_84112.htm Accessed at: 10-Aug-2022
  16. Kanciak, K., Wrona, K., Jarosz, M. 2022. Secure Onboarding and Key Management in Federated IoT Environments. In: 17th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems (FedCSIS).

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THANK YOU !

https://particle-summary.pt

POC: Marco Manso (CEO) marco@particle-summary.pt

Authors: Marco Manso, Barbara Guerra, Janusz Furtak, Frank T. Johnsen,

James Michaelis, Daniel Ota, Niranjan Suri, Konrad Wrona