Panels

MILCOM is the largest military communications conference in the U.S., routinely having over 5000 participants. The theme of MILCOM 2010 is "the next decade of military communications." With the conference focus in mind we are seeking a "Futures" panel that would address not only the next decade but definitely beyond it. While communications and its relevant technologies are of course of interest, viewing the future and the factors influencing it more broadly would certainly be appropriate. A panel exploring the "grand challenges of our time" would be of great interest to the diverse attendees of MILCOM.

The Transformational Communications Architecture (TCA) construct has been around since 2003. With the exception of MUOS, all of the original space architecture segments that comprised the TCA have been cancelled, along with many other aspects of transformation. Meanwhile, the user demand and global threats in space and in cyberspace have continued to evolve. Some key attributes of the original TCA vision remain vital, including net centric operations, a secure black core, an IP based convergence plane, dynamic allocation of resources and dramatic increases in the amount and types of services available. To achieve these attributes, a coordinated enterprise strategy is fundamental and has great advantages in operational, technical and financial aspects. Moreover, convergence of the space layer with the continued evolution of the GIG is essential. Whether it is over commercial, civil, military or other communications, a fresh SATCOM perspective is necessary. So, what’s next, and how do we achieve it? This panel will discuss those questions and present data to support the argument that a new vector in SATCOM services is needed to complement the evolving terrestrial information infrastructure. The panel members will outline their visions for next generation communications architecture topologies, underlying strategies, and challenges for achieving success.

First, we briefly review the core elements of the military’s net-centric strategy and the desirable attributes of military-grade packet networks. W

e then map these to the requirements imposed on packet-switched and transport technologies, and on the architecture of the networks and the systems deployed. Thereafter, we outline how modern, optical Ethernet technologies can satisfy these requirements. We focus next on a discussion of the basics of optical Ethernet – i.e. why look at optical Ethernet at all? Applications of Ethernet for military networks and its benefits, the roles of the underlying technologies – packet and optical -- and their integration, as well as “Carrier Ethernet.” Having specified these, we discuss macro architectural options for building MAN/WAN interconnects for defense using Ethernet technologies, and the key operational/design principles involved. Finally, we focus on key developments in optical Ethernet technology over the last 3-4 years that impact the military’s adoption and deployment -- such as reliability, security, OAM and management, enforceable QoS capabilities, and synchronization/timing over Ethernet. We conclude with some open issues, and a look at ongoing Ethernet developments in the industry – automated control planes, tunneling technologies, and reliability.

Outline

• Core elements of a net-centric strategy and its implications for network architecture and system (switch/router) design.
• Attributes/requirements of military-grade networks, and the requirements they impose on systems and network technologies.
• Why discuss optical Ethernet at all? The applications of Ethernet technologies in the military context, and the benefits of Ethernet in a military environment.
• Implications of (1) and (2) above for packet-switched (e.g. Ethernet) and transport (e.g. optical) technologies. That is, characteristics and requirements needed in the packet and optical domains.
• How optical Ethernet satisfies the above requirements today.
• Macro-architectural options for building MAN/WAN interconnections for defense and key operational/design principles involved. We examine connection-oriented Ethernet and its coupling to optical technology, and discuss alternative architectures for realizing Ethernet services.
• Key developments of the last few years that impact military adoption and deployment of optical Ethernet. These include: reliability/protection, security (MAC and link-layer, as well as user data), OAM and management, hard QoS (via service definitions, hardware system features, tunnel routing techniques, multicast capabilities), and synchronization/timing information transport over Ethernet (IEEE 1588.v2).
• Wrap-up and a look towards the future – standards, system design, industry consensus.

As innovative new multimedia applications are flooding the market, spectrum has become the greatest infrastructure challenge to the providers of broadband service. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a National Broadband Plan in the March of 2010, making available 500MHz of additional spectrum. Industry would like more, though happy with the current move. This move is sure to help the industry add more innovative applications and drive the network throughputs even higher. All the federal agencies also need high speed communications faced with complexities in crime fighting, terrorism and national defense needs, including public safety and unmanned systems. The panel will feature federal and state policymakers, research laboratories and the industry, discussing new policy implications, evolution of the overall wireless communications ecosystem, spectrum re-allocation issues, new challenges and opportunities for national security agencies.

TBD

DIACAP Certification and Accreditation of large systems has a unique set of challenges. A panel of IA practitioners from Army, Navy, Air Force and private industry, along with a representative from the AFSPC DAA's office, will provide their insights on C&A experiences and difficulties unique to large systems. Panelists will be available for questions from the audience.

The main design characteristics of the space and ground segments (including control and terminals) are discussed next. In the space segment we treat both the bus and payload characteristics and their interfaces. In the payload discussion we show the value of phased arrays as an example of an improvement to flexibility to move beams to meet ever changing coverage requirements. In the control segment we discuss access methods as well as the division of control between centralized vs distributed levels and fencing of resources at many levels. Control is also discussed in terms of limitations of who is allowed to perform certain functions and receive certain information based on priority, privilege, and precedence.

The JTRS Software Communications Architecture (SCA) is a standard developed by the U.S. DoD for military software defined radio communications applications. The SCA defines a common software Operating Environment (OE) for radio platforms which supports the installation and instantiation of waveform applications. The OE provides access to platform capabilities through defined Applications Programmer Interfaces (APIs). SCA waveform applications are intended to be developed once and then ported across multiple platforms driving down life cycle costs and improving communications interoperability.

SCA waveform application portability is a complex and sometimes confusing paradigm. There are highly varied SCA waveform porting experiences from across industry, Government and Academia. The broad experiences and diverse backgrounds of the proposed panel will provide conference participants with an engaging discussion and valuable insights, including:

• Successful waveform applications development techniques.
• OE and waveform partitioning, functionality and APIs including networking waveforms such as SRW, WNW.
• Waveform portability guidelines and porting examples.
• Development environments and tools.
• Lessons learned, avoiding common pitfalls and a look at promising paths forward.

The commercial wireless communications industry has invested tens of billions of dollars in the development of highly functional 3G wireless voice, video and data networks. The competitive nature of the commercial marketplace demands the continual development and deployment of the latest technologies with enhanced features and functionality. Government and military entities are increasingly interested in finding ways to leverage this investment to supplement their existing communications. The recent proliferation of smartphones and associated applications has further accelerated this interest by government end users. The panel will debate the pros and cons of government entities utilizing commercial wireless networks as a key means of communication and discuss the forthcoming advances in network technology and architecture that could facilitate greater government adoption. The migration to LTE, 700MHz, network partitioning, secure communications, segmented control, intuitive networks, distributed network infrastructure, MANET technology, spectrum allowance, and other topics will be addressed during the panel discussion.

Commercial FSS capacity has become an integral component of defense satellite communications, functioning as a supplement to the DoD broad beam satellite transponders on DSCS, and more recently, WGS. A simple budget comparison shows that DoD places enormously greater value on, and therefore has dramatically higher expectations for, the unique capabilities that were to be provided by TSAT. While additional conventional broad beam transponder capacity is one DoD alternative, there has been little discussion on how commercial satellites can fulfill more urgent mission needs in the absence of a TSAT – such as enhanced broadband Comm On The Move to and from small platforms, economical high speed GiG access, and even a measure of protected communications. This panel will examine this concept by quantifying some of the functional requirements and benefits attributed to future defense broadband satellite networks, and the potential for commercial systems to fulfill this void in the near term. The focus will be on what commercial satellites need to do, to be more like TSAT, instead of how to more efficiently acquire commercial capacity that, by definition, falls far short of modern network centric warfare requirements.

Cognitive networking deals with applying cognitive principles across the entire network protocol stack as well as the entire network system in order to benefit from the past experiences of the network devices. It differs from cognitive radios. In order to benefit from the raw bit rates of the physical layer, focusing on the higher layers is essential. Unlike cognitive radios that sense for whitespaces, a cognitive network is far more challenging as well as rewarding. Cognitive networking is essential for the network-centric future tactical war fighter as it can gather, analyze, and utilize collective network information. One of the major challenges includes the merger of networking and artificial intelligence communities. This panel will comprise of experts who are not only hands-on researchers but also the originators of the area of cognitive radios and networking. The proposed panel will focus on creating consensus in applying cognitive networking in future tactical networks as well as to discuss the possible hurdles that the current research funding faces. Additionally, the panel will look into the possibility of arriving at a national consensus between tactical and civilian scientific funding sources.

Unmanned Aerial Systems continue to prove their worth in military as well as civil and commercial applications. The requests for the capabilities provided by the UAS continue to raise the demand for these systems in support of delivering robust communications, reconnaissance, combat support, and logistics to mention a few. Due to successful completion of these key assignments together with the removal of the human from the risk the Quadrennial Defense Review has recommended that 45% of the Air Force future long range strike force will be unmanned.

In addition, the highlights of the Defense Department's fiscal 2010 budget proposal dated April 6, indicates increasing ISR spending, of which the greater portion will be allocated to launching additional Unmanned Aerial Systems with Predator on the top of the list.

MILSATCOM terminals historically have represent approximately 50% of total lifecycle costs of providing warfighters with their global information needs. Terminal must be designed to interoperate from aircraft, ships and subs, ground vehicles (such as HMMVs) and fixed locations over protected, wideband and narrowband satellites, offering global 24x7 coverage. Their program schedules must also be synchronized with the fielding schedules of the space and control segments. Networking technologies are offering DoD an opportunity to address concerns about terminal affordability while solving some of the unique to MILSATCOM interoperability problems.

The MILSATCOM terminal community is collaborating to assure interoperability, affordability and synchronization to provide the types of systems the warfighters need that guarantee mission assurance. The GIG provides warfighters with a single protected global IP network with access to information they need to perform the current and future set of missions. Terminals continue to evolve to provide new netcentric capabilities which may involve riskier technologies. This panel addresses how affordable MILSATCOM terminals are being developed to participate in and be managed in this netcentric environment, and give maximum capability as early in the space segment’s life cycle as is practical.

It is expected that in the following years, like also today e.g. in ISAF-operation, several reasons will force the international community to form coalitions to control numerous challenging threats. The roles and tasks of national armed forces and their mutual relations are changing.

International crisis management operations are gaining a more significant role as the threat of armored attack diminishes. In addition, large scale national disasters and defense against terrorism necessitate the use of armed forces in support of Civil Society.

Simultaneously, technology developments enhance weapon and sensor capabilities. As a consequence, units and forces become more effective but also more expensive. Fewer units are needed for the same level of capability. On the other hand, reduction in the number of units necessitates an increase in their mobility. Improvements in the command, control and communications, battlespace management and situation awareness become necessary. Hence increments and improvements in the following capabilities are required:

• Mobility
• Localization capabilities
• Interoperability between national and international civil authorities
• Interoperability within own armed services and foreign armed forces
• Bridging between nets of different kind
• Operations in hostile electromagnetic environment
• Extensive use of commercial components and standards

The current situation, however, does not provide coalitions with state-of-the-art capabilities in these fields especially in the area of interoperability. Many nations have their legacy systems with extremely good capabilities but understandably these are not meant for joint operations.

At the same time the cognitive radio technology is getting ready to introduce first features to be fielded. The on-going fielding of software defined radio platforms will enable the fielding of cognitive radio technology and the capability improvement of the existing equipment without replacing communication equipment. It is not clear, however, how the cognitive radio will affect the coalition operations and is it even sensible to field the cognitive radio in multi-national coalition environment.

This panel will discuss the effects of cognitive radio in coalition environment; what are the key benefits and possible drawbacks of such technology in multi-national environment.

The topics include, but not limited to the following themes:

• Concept of Operations and top level requirements in a Coalition Force
• What can be achieved with cognitive radio in coalition environment
• The Level of Interoperability that is Required
• A Possible Roadmap towards a cognitive radio in coalition environment
• Developing new vs. applying existing waveform technologies
• Issues on frequency spectrum management
• The Challenge: Security Architecture

The panel is to be unclassified addressing Cyber issues at the upcoming MILCOM 2010 conference. Its membership will be composed of NSA, USSTRATCOM, and the Service Cyber Leads. MILCOM is the largest domestic conference annually addressing military communications. With more than 5000 participants from the government, the military, and industry, the conference provides a unique forum for the Cyber Leads to present their latest perspectives on the field and further the discussion of the Cyber topic from that initiated by the luncheon speaker, General Keith Alexander. Each panel participant will be given the opportunity to give a five to ten minute presentation addressing the contributions of their organization to controlling the Cyber environment. The remainder of the panel time will be used to respond to questions from the audience.

Outline

• Overview of the tutorial
• Introduction and Definition of Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs)
• Why Wireless Mesh Networks?
• Evolution of WMNs
• Past pitfalls and their impact on WMNs
• Architectural issues in WMNs
• Capacity of WMNs
• Protocol design issues in WMNs
• Algorithmic design issues in WMNs
• State of the art protocol solutions for WMNs
• Design and performance issues in Wide Area WMNs
• Specific Design issues for large scale WMNs
• Tutorial Summary

In military missions, success and survival depends on having comprehensive information in real time about your surroundings, the positions of your enemies and allies, and your strategic options. But in today’s battlefield environments – across harsh terrains and isolated locations that lack communications infrastructure – delivering this critical situational awareness is often compromised, leaving military personnel disconnected and at greater risk.

Leading the discussion on enabling the networked battlefield of the 21st century is the Department of Defense Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program, which aims to develop secure, wireless networking communications capabilities including interoperable, software-defined radios to Joint forces.

This session will explore how battlefield transformation is possible through the combined insights from JTRS, industry forward-thinkers and developers, such as MITRE and Harris Corporation, and the Army, which will share its firsthand experiences with developing this technology, deploying it to the field, and the benefits it affords our troops.

This panel, representing senior United States Department of Defense (DoD) organizations, are prepared to discuss policies, processes, and programs, sponsored by DoD, that are focused on improving interoperability within the context of Net Centric Operations and Warfare (NCOW). The United States Department of Defense, in support of the warfighter during Joint Allied, and Coalition missions, is committed to improving Joint and Allied Interoperability within the context of Net Centric Operations and Warfare (NCOW). An example of this DoD policy and priority is depicted through the Joint Tactical Data Enterprise Services (TDES) Migration Plan (JTMP). The JTMP provides insights into the DoD vision for NCOW migration from the perspective of both the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The JTMP reflects, in detail, the Combatant Commands (COCOMs), Services, and Agencies plans for supporting migration in the pursuit of enhanced interoperability. OSD is the lead organization, in DoD, responsible for policy development and oversight regarding the acquisition and fielding of NCOW systems to the warfighter, while, JCS serves as the lead organization in DoD responsible for oversight of the requirements process for the acquisition and fielding of NCOW systems to the warfighter. The OSD and JCS staffs work together, along with Service and other Agency staffs to ensure optimum NCOW capabilities are developed and fielded to the warfighter, Additionally, Capability Portfolio Managers (CPMs) have been established at the DoD level to help oversee a collection of programs across the Department. Specifically, the Net Centric (NC) CPM, led by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration (OASD(NII)) and United States Strategic Combatant Command (USSTRATCOM), is focused on the communications capability required to transport information. Whereas, the Command and Control (C2) CPM, led by OASD/NII and United States Joint Forces Combatant Command (USJFCOM), is focused on Joint C2 Systems across the Services. The Joint C2 Systems provide the applications necessary to implement NCOW. The NC and C2 CPMs are leading the development of Joint NCOW capabilities for DoD, in part, by sponsoring a number of studies to assess Joint NCOW alternatives. During the past several years, DoD has conducted a number of studies and assessments, including the 2007 Joint Airborne Networking (JAN) Study and the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Advanced Tactical Data Link (ATDL) Assessments. These studies and assessments, in concert with other OSD, JCS, and Service reviews, are preparing the path forward towards achieving more effective NCOW capabilities in the future. The results and impacts of these studies and assessments referenced above will be described by the team members who participated in these efforts. Members of this team serve in various organizations within DoD. Their participation on this panel will offer the opportunity for some unique insights regarding their organization’s perspectives and priorities.

Private sector and Government are faced with increasing dependence on cyber space on one hand and tremendous vulnerability to cyber attacks on the other. A whole industry is devoted to cyber security in commercial arena. Government has stepped up effort aimed at cyber security. While these sectors face similar challenges and can share many solutions, they also have different requirements on the balance between security and functionality. Additionally, increasing fraction of academic research is devoted to cyber security and this community brings a whole new perspective to the cyber security problems. It is thus of interest to bring representatives from these different sectors to share their thoughts on the approaches to cyber security, commonality and differences. The proposed panel is designed to achieve this goal. The distinguished panel members will discuss the current activities and approaches to cyber security in their respective domains, bring fresh views and insights from various perspectives, and generate dialogue on commonality and differences.

Today’s military handhelds, and the supporting network infrastructure, are designed to be highly robust and secure. Unfortunately, they are also fairly inflexible and very costly. New applications, and modifications to existing applications, can take years to field. Development is hampered by tight integration of hardware and software that is often generations behind commercial technology. Further complicating matters is the standard DoD practice to segregate users, requirements, and procurement in a highly disciplined process which does not permit a quick reaction in the face of rapidly changing user needs.

DARPA's Transformative Apps program is building the middleware, infrastructure, and business processes to bring the flexibility and rapid development cycle times of commercial handheld software to the warfighter. Other DoD programs and initiatives are also aggressively promoting development and support of handheld apps. This panel brings together experts from the government and industry to discuss key issues and challenges of putting mobile apps into the hands of warfighters.

The panel presentations and discussions will cover:

• DoD programs and experiments supporting development and evaluation of apps
• Network and software security
• Challenges posed by tactical communications infrastructure
• New GSM-based tactical networks
• Examples of key tactical applications, as well as middleware and services

There is an ever-increasing need for a more robust, higher capacity and interoperable communications infrastructure to support evolving DoD operational requirements. David Narkevicius of OSD NII states: "DoD is working to achieve communications interoperability, affordability, and incorporation of evolving technologies. The Department depends on reliable and flexible communications to support warfighter missions. In partnership with Industry, the Department is working to help develop future communications capabilities. Efforts like DirectNetTM consortium teaming across Industry are working to provide new communications capabilities offering interoperable, flexible, high bandwidth communications with a structure to optimize competition for cost savings to the Department." This panel will discuss the DirectNetTM vision, waveform requirements drivers, and development status. The focus is on a certifiable, non-proprietary, high capacity, directional mesh network RF-based waveform standard providing vendor-to-vendor and joint forces interoperability, while reducing overall life cycle cost.

The United States is the most wired nation on Earth, yet our cyber-defenses are woefully lacking. The problem is not one of resources but lack of a cohesive strategy to meet this challenge.

The Internet network is constantly under attack. Many attacks are successful and undetected. The attacks that are catching the headlines can change significantly from one year to the next. Hacking techniques are constantly changing because they depend heavily on the opportunistic exploitation of vulnerabilities introduced accidentally by the major software vendors, they are constantly changing.

This panel will discuss the practical challenges faced by the government and commercial sectors for protecting the Internet traffic for the *.gov Cyberspace network. They will also discuss lessons learned from their real world experiences.

TBD

Today’s battlefield requires agility in a matter of minutes, not hours or days, but there is a critical data sharing gap at the tactical edge. Implementation of DOD Net-Centric Data Strategy through XML-based data standards is critical to fixing this problem and providing an environment where interoperable data is available to the war-fighter whenever needed. The C2 Core data standard is developing a collection of data components that provide semantics understood by all, which are composed as needed into specifications for data exchanges. Additionally, the Tactical Edge Data Solutions Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) was initiated to work with the Services to overcome documented gaps in data sharing, and create a Joint approach to delivering data for use in a leader centric, net enabled future.

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The decade beyond 2010 will continue to place very specific requirements on the DoD’s network communications infrastructure. More than ever, the DoD will need to stay ahead of the curve with technology that enables the agency to fully understand how and by whom its networks are being used and support collaboration without sacrificing network performance.

The ability to act on secure, real-time communications is vital for the DoD to make timely and accurate decisions for mission-critical operations. But cyber security threats are accelerating in both breadth and depth every day, and the DoD must effectively monitor and manage the continued growth in diverse IP communications traffic traversing its networks.

The challenge is to ensure that IP traffic moving across its networks complies with network policies while simultaneously minimizing the impact of cyber security threats. Multiple software applications can be intelligently deployed to effectively thwart risks to the DoD's communications infrastructure.

Many tiny technology companies are currently working on big ideas for transforming military communications networks. From laser communications to Service Oriented Architecture to Innovative satellite systems, unencumbered by legacy commitments, small businesses are thinking creatively about solving the military’s most pressing problems: anti-jamming, LPI/LPD, joint, multi-layer, interoperable networks. This panel brings together three such companies who are investing their time and energy in making a difference in how voice, data and images are delivered to the war fighter.

However, tiny businesses, many with significant levels of expertise and creative concepts, are frequently unable to infiltrate the military Industrial complex and gain acceptance of their Innovations. This panel will discuss the technologies developed by these companies, the barriers they have overcome, and how collaboration with entrepreneurial companies can accelerate the adoption of beneficial technologies by the military.

Many reliable communications systems have been designed and fielded using Single Input Single Output (SISO) antenna configurations. With recent advances in lower cost signal processing technology, coupled with advances in mesh technology, MIMO antenna systems are a key enabler to higher system performance. Traditional measures of antenna quality such as gain, beamwidth, polarization purity, and return loss are still important component-level metrics. But advancements in MIMO antennas are driving these metrics towards a more system oriented point-of-view. For example, Bit error rate, throughput capacity, and link efficiency are often the true measure of system performance. Since MIMO antenna configurations are a key driver of these metrics, an understanding of the interaction between the two is essential. This presentation will provide an overview of key MIMO antenna and system performance metrics. An example will be shown that demonstrates how MIMO can improve performance, particularly, in challenging propagation environments.

If properly designed and intelligently managed, cognitive radios can do much more than addressing spectrum congestion issues. In addition to DSA (Dynamic Spectrum Access), Cognitive Radios applications include ECCM (Electronic-Counter-Counter-Measures) and the rapid deployment of high capacity trunk networks in the battle field or in disaster recovery operations. Cognitive Radios and for that matter Cognitive Jammers also offer an elegant solution to the growing issue of friendly jamming or friendly interference. Their operational capabilities and the significance of the impact they will have will depend on the nature and the mix of key technologies they will use. During this panel we will discuss how Cognitive radios enabling technology abilities, discuss the challenges and share experiences that include but are not limited to software defined architectures, spectrum sensing abilities, speed requirements, full band frequency and filters agility, policy management algorithms and adaptive antenna technologies.

TBD