MARINES READY NEXT-GENERATION WIRELESS DATA FOR BATTLEFIELD
SAN JOSE -- The U.S. Marine Corps is testing wireless data technologies as battlefield alternatives to current, excruciatingly slow 19 kbps transfer rates. Capts. David Joseforsky and Gil Garcia of the Naval Postgraduate School briefed the Wireless Communications Assn. International’s annual technology symposium here Fri on work this year with Wi-Fi and Free Space Optics (FSO), which is like fiber optics except that air instead of fiber is used to conduct the light.
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The service is examining the technologies for fast setup and teardown, reduced equipment weight and size, avoiding line damage, redundancy and dangers such as land mines, as well as higher bandwidth, Joseforsky said. Current narrowband communication over distances “stinks,” Garcia said: “We cannot tactically fight in a digital world like this.”
A Unit Operations Center tested at General Dynamics early this month is “on the brink of deployment in Iraq,” Garcia said. It’s “a perfect opportunity for Free Space Optics, and we're also looking at Millimeter OC” in place of fiber to connect field command centers and hilltop antennas over 300 m-2 km, Joseforsky said. The tests looked at FSO, 802.11b, 802.16, microwave links, VoIP and Iridium satellite channels, in addition to a Digital Subscriber Unit that converts analog signals to digital for transmission over an IP backbone, Garcia said. Harris Corp. fSona, MRV Communications, Cisco Systems and LightPointe participated, he said.
The Common Aviation Command & Control System will be tested at Raytheon in San Diego in early Feb., Joseforsky said. It would connect field operations across a wide area but wouldn’t be ready for full production until 2007, he said. Tested will be FSO, 802.11b, 802.16 and microwave, Garcia said. The focus is on finding useful, commercial technologies and getting them “ruggedized” and military certified, Joseforsky said. He said 802.11g hadn’t been studied because it lacked encryption.