Search Results (12)

Medical support in crisis situations is a major challenge. Efficient implementation of the medical evacuation process especially in operations with limited human resources that may occur during armed conflicts can limit the loss of these resources. Proper evacuation of wounded soldiers from the battlefield can increase the chances of their survival and rapid return to further military operations. This paper presents the technical details of the decision support system for medical evacuation to support this process. The basis for the functioning of this system is the continuous measurement of vital signs of soldiers via a specialized measurement module with a set of medical sensors. Vital signs values are then transmitted via the communication module to the analysis and inference module, which automatically determines the color of medical triage and the soldier’s chance of survival. This paper presents the results of tests of our system to validate it, which were carried out using test vectors of soldiers’ vital signs, as well as the results of the system’s performance on a group of volunteers who performed typical activities of tactical operations. The results of this study showed the usefulness of the developed system for supporting military medical services in military operations. Full article

The extreme toxicity of nerve agents and the broad spectrum of their physical and chemical properties, enabling the use of these agents in a variety of tactical situations, is a continuing challenge in maintaining the knowledge and capability to detect them, as well as in finding new effective methods. Despite significant advances in the instrumentation of the analysis of nerve agents, relatively simple methods based on the evaluation of colour signals (absorption and fluorescence), in particular those using the cholinesterase reaction, continue to be of importance. This review provides a brief presentation of the current status of these simple methods, with an emphasis on military applications, and illustrates the high interest of the professional community in their further development. At the same time, it also contains some peculiarities (high reliability and durability, resistance to extreme climatic conditions, work in deployed means of protection, low purchase prices, economic availability especially in a state of war, etc.) that the authors believe research and development of simple methods and means for the detection of nerve agents should respect. Full article

In the realm of military communications, the advent of new technologies like 5G and the future 6G networks holds promise. However, incorporating these technologies into tactical environments presents unique security challenges. This article delves into an analysis of these challenges by examining practical use cases for military communications, where emerging technologies can be applied. Our focus lies on identifying and presenting a range of emerging technologies associated with 5G and 6G, including the Internet of things (IoT), tactile internet, network virtualization and softwarization, artificial intelligence, network slicing, digital twins, neuromorphic processors, joint sensing and communications, and blockchain. We specifically explore their applicability in tactical environments by proposing where they can be potential use cases. Additionally, we provide an overview of legacy tactical radios so that they can be researched to address the challenges posed by these technologies. Full article

This paper outlines the development of an onboard computer prototype for data registration, storage, transformation, and analysis. The system is intended for health and use monitoring systems in military tactical vehicles according to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Standard Agreement for designing vehicle systems using an open architecture. The processor includes a data processing pipeline with three main modules. The first module captures the data received from sensor sources and vehicle network buses, performs a data fusion, and saves the data in a local database or sends them to a remote system for further analysis and fleet management. The second module provides filtering, translation, and interpretation for fault detection; this module will be completed in the future with a condition analysis module. The third module is a communication module for web serving data and data distribution systems according to the standards for interoperability. This development will allow us to analyze the driving performance for efficiency, which helps us to know the vehicle’s condition; the development will also help us deliver information for better tactical decisions in mission systems. This development has been implemented using open software, allowing us to measure the amount of data registered and filter only the relevant data for mission systems, which avoids communication bottlenecks. The on-board pre-analysis will help to conduct condition-based maintenance approaches and fault forecasting using the on-board uploaded fault models, which are trained off-board using the collected data. Full article

This paper presents the findings of detailed and comprehensive technical literature aimed at identifying the current and future research challenges of tactical autonomy. It discusses in great detail the current state-of-the-art powerful artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and robot technologies, and their potential for developing safe and robust autonomous systems in the context of future military and defense applications. Additionally, we discuss some of the technical and operational critical challenges that arise when attempting to practically build fully autonomous systems for advanced military and defense applications. Our paper provides the state-of-the-art advanced AI methods available for tactical autonomy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that addresses the important current trends, strategies, critical challenges, tactical complexities, and future research directions of tactical autonomy. We believe this work will greatly interest researchers and scientists from academia and the industry working in the field of robotics and the autonomous systems community. We hope this work encourages researchers across multiple disciplines of AI to explore the broader tactical autonomy domain. We also hope that our work serves as an essential step toward designing advanced AI and ML models with practical implications for real-world military and defense settings. Full article

The digital transformation of the defence sector is not exempt from innovative requirements and challenges, with the lack of availability of reliable, unbiased and consistent data for training automatisms (machine learning algorithms, decision-making, what-if recreation of operational conditions, support the human understanding of the hybrid operational picture, personnel training/education, etc.) being one of the most relevant gaps. In the context of cyber defence, the state-of-the-art provides a plethora of data network collections that tend to lack presenting the information of all communication layers (physical to application). They are synthetically generated in scenarios far from the singularities of cyber defence operations. None of these data network collections took into consideration usage profiles and specific environments directly related to acquiring a cyber situational awareness, typically missing the relationship between incidents registered at the hardware/software level and their impact on the military mission assets and objectives, which consequently bypasses the entire chain of dependencies between strategic, operational, tactical and technical domains. In order to contribute to the mitigation of these gaps, this paper introduces CYSAS-S3, a novel dataset designed and created as a result of a joint research action that explores the principal needs for datasets by cyber defence centres, resulting in the generation of a collection of samples that correlate the impact of selected Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) with each phase of their cyber kill chain, regarding mission-level operations and goals. Full article

Modern wireless communication systems use various technological solutions to increase the efficiency of created radio networks. This efficiency also applies to radio resources. Currently, the utilization of a radio environment map (REM) is one of the directions allowing to improve radio resource management. The REM is increasingly used in emerging mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs), in particular military tactical networks. In this case, the use of new technologies such as software-defined radio and network, cognitive radio, radio sensing, and building electromagnetic situational awareness made it possible to implement REM in tactical MANETs. Propagation attenuation maps (PAMs) are crucial REM elements that allow for determining the ranges of radio network nodes. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm for PAM based on a parabolic equation method (PEM). The PEM allows determining the signal attenuation along the assumed propagation direction. In this case, we consider terrain topography to obtain a more realistic analysis. Then, we average the adjacent attenuation profiles defined for the selected directions in places where attenuation has not been calculated. To this aim, linear regression is applied. Finally, we define several metrics that allow for the accuracy assessment of determining the PAM as a function of its dimensions. Full article

Currently, in the field of military modernization, tactical networks using advanced unmanned aerial vehicle systems, such as drones, place an emphasis on proactively preventing operational limiting factors produced by cyber-electronic warfare threats and responding to them. This characteristic has recently been highlighted as a key concern in the functioning of modern network-based combat systems in research on combat effect analysis. In this paper, a novel discrete-event-system-specification-based cyber-electronic warfare M&S (D-CEWS) was first proposed as an integrated framework for analyzing communication effects and engagement effects on cyber-electronic warfare threats and related countermeasures that may occur within drones. Accordingly, for the first time, based on communication metrics in tactical ad hoc networks, an analysis was conducted on the engagement effect of blue forces by major wireless threats, such as multi-layered jamming, routing attacks, and network worms. In addition, the correlations and response logics between competitive agents were also analyzed in order to recognize the efficiency of mutual engagements between them based on the communication system incapacitation scenarios for diverse wireless threats. As a result, the damage effect by the cyber-electronic warfare threat, which could not be considered in the existing military M&S, could be calculated according to the PDR (packet delivery ratio) and related malicious pool rate change in the combat area, and the relevance with various threats by a quantifiable mission attribute given to swarming drones could also be additionally secured. Full article

Military service is inherently demanding and, due to the nature of these demands, the term “tactical athlete” has been coined to capture the physical requirements of the profession. Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadets are a unique subset of the military service community, and the complexity of their training and educational pursuits increases their susceptibility to unhealthy eating patterns. The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the relationship between the perceived barriers to healthy eating, food insecurity, sports nutrition knowledge, and dietary patterns among Army ROTC cadets. The usual dietary intake was gathered from (N = 37) cadets using the General Nutrition Assessment Food Frequency Questionnaire. The perceived barriers to healthy eating were measured using a set of scales consisting of social barriers (6 items, α = 0.86), access barriers (2 items, α = 0.95), and personal barriers (2 items, α = 0.67), with higher-scale scores indicating greater perceived barriers. Spearman correlation coefficients were used to measure the association between the energy-adjusted dietary intakes and the scores on the barriers scales. Energy-adjusted intakes of calcium (ρ = −0.47, p ≤ 0.01), fiber (ρ = −0.35, p = 0.03), vitamin A (ρ = −0.46, p ≤ 0.01), vitamin C (ρ = −0.43, p ≤ 0.01), fruit (ρ = −0.34, p = 0.04), and vegetables (ρ = −0.50, p ≤ 0.01) were negatively correlated with the perceived personal barrier scores. The energy-adjusted intakes of fiber (ρ = −0.36, p = 0.03), vitamin C (ρ = −0.37, p = 0.03), and vitamin E (ρ = −0.45, p ≤.01) were negatively correlated with perceived social barriers, while energy-adjusted vitamin C intake was negatively correlated with perceived access barriers (ρ = −0.40, p = 0.01). Although additional research is needed to better understand the dietary patterns of ROTC cadets, among the participants in this study, greater perceived personal, social, and access barriers were associated with less nutrient-dense eating patterns. Interventions aimed at addressing such barriers may prove beneficial for the improvement of diet quality among ROTC cadets. Full article

Authentication algorithms in the form of cryptographic schemes, such as the Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA-1) and the digital signature algorithm (DSA), specified in the current variable message format (VMF) military standard have numerous reliability-related limitations when applied to tactical data link (TDL) and multi-TDL networks (MTN). This is because TDL and MTN require maximum tactical security, communication integrity, and low network overhead based on many protocol header bits for rapid communication with limited network resources. The application of such authentication algorithms to TDL and MTN in a rapidly changing battlefield environment without reinforcement measures will lead to functional weaknesses and vulnerabilities when high-level digital-covert activities and deception tactics are implemented. Consequently, the existing VMF authentication scheme must be improved to secure transmission integrity, lower network transaction, and receive authentication tactical information in VMF-based combat network radio (CNR) networks. Therefore, in this study, a tactical wireless ad hoc network topology, similar to that of the existing CNRs, is considered, and a lightweight multi-factor hash chain-based authentication scheme that includes a time-based one-time password (T-OTP) for network overhead reduction and terminal authentication is proposed, coupled with exception handling. The proposed method enhances the confidentiality of tactical message exchanges and reduces unnecessary network transactions and transmission bits for authentication flows between real-time military terminals owned by squads, while ensuring robustness in limited battlefields. Based on these approaches, in the future, we intend to increase the authentication reliability between wireless terminals in the Korean variable message format (KVMF)-based CNR networks based on the Korean Army Corps network scenarios. Full article

In this paper, a cognitive radio engine platform is proposed for exploiting available frequency channels for a tactical wireless sensor network while aiming to protect incumbent communication devices, known as the primary user (PU), from undesired harmful interference. In the field of tactical communication networks, there is an urgent need to identify available frequencies for opportunistic and dynamic access to channels on which the PU is active. This paper introduces a cognitive engine platform for determining the available channels on the basis of a case-based reasoning technique deployable as a core functionality on a cognitive radio engine to enable dynamic spectrum access (DSA) with high fidelity. To this end, a plausible learning engine to characterize the channel usage pattern is introduced to extract the best channel candidate for the tactical cognitive radio node (TCRN). The performance of the proposed cognitive engine was verified by simulation tests that confirmed the reliability of the functional aspect, which includes the learning engine, as well as the case-based reasoning engine. Moreover, the efficacy of the TCRN with regard to the avoidance of collision with the PU operation, considered the etiquette secondary user (SU), was demonstrated. Full article

The Internet of Things (IoT) is undeniably transforming the way that organizations communicate and organize everyday businesses and industrial procedures. Its adoption has proven well suited for sectors that manage a large number of assets and coordinate complex and distributed processes. This survey analyzes the great potential for applying IoT technologies (i.e., data-driven applications or embedded automation and intelligent adaptive systems) to revolutionize modern warfare and provide benefits similar to those in industry. It identifies scenarios where Defense and Public Safety (PS) could leverage better commercial IoT capabilities to deliver greater survivability to the warfighter or first responders, while reducing costs and increasing operation efficiency and effectiveness. This article reviews the main tactical requirements and the architecture, examining gaps and shortcomings in existing IoT systems across the military field and mission-critical scenarios. The review characterizes the open challenges for a broad deployment and presents a research roadmap for enabling an affordable IoT for defense and PS. Full article