Cost-Effective Situational Awareness Through IoT COTS Radios

TL;DR

This paper introduces Beartooth MKII radios and Gateway as cost-effective, power-efficient solutions for battlefield situational awareness, leveraging IoT COTS components to enhance tactical connectivity and compatibility with existing military networks.

Contribution

It presents a novel, low-cost, power-efficient radio system and gateway that integrate with military information systems using IoT COTS components for improved battlefield situational awareness.

Findings

Enhanced availability of situational awareness in field conditions

Compatibility with existing IP networks and TAK infrastructure

Cost and power efficiency of the proposed system

Abstract

Situational awareness (SA) through encrypted connectivity in modern warfare is critical to battlefield coordination. Existing solutions provide infrastructure-less connectivity and situational awareness, but at a high cost, power consumption, and bulky form factors that limit their utility for tactical operations. We propose the Beartooth MKII radios as a cost- and power-effective, handy solution for establishing a situational awareness overlay. To integrate with military information brokers, such as the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK), we propose the Beartooth Gateway, which creates an IP network between Beartooth radios, Gateways, and other TAK-capable devices. We show that leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components for MKII and the Gateway can enhance the availability of SA and meet the user requirements in the field while ensuring compatibility with existing IP networks connected to TAK infrastructure.