C4I ENABLING TACTICAL INTERCOM SOLUTIONS
C4i Communications and the Future Tom Cropper, Editor
How militaries around the world are having to update their thinking to adapt the best consumer technology for the battlefield.
THE SAVOX IMP HAS ALREADY BEEN INSTALLED ABOARD MARITIME VESSELS WITH MILITARY UNITS AROUND THE WORLD, INCLUDING ABOARD RIBS, OFFSHORE MULTI-ROLE CRAFT AND A COASTGUARD CUTTER. PICTURED: A FINNISH MARINE COASTAL JAEGER WEARING A SAVOX HEADSET CONNECTED TO HIS IMP PCU.
A key challenge will be to close the gap between the technology consumers take for granted in everyday life and what’s available on the battlefield
C
4I COMMUNICATION technology is evolving quickly and, if a glance at the pace of technology elsewhere is anything to go by, the coming years and decades will see that pace pick up very rapidly. Current products have precious little time before they go from being cutting edge to obsolete. Military requirements are also changing as we adapt to a new type of warfare. For those companies developing the next generation of equipment, therefore, the challenge is to provide a definite upgrade on existing equipment, while also second guessing what the future might bring.
The Technology Gap A key challenge will be to close the gap between the technology consumers take for granted in everyday life and what’s available on the battlefield. That gap is currently considerable. While a soldier might be used to using his iPhone or Android device at home, when it comes to the theatre of war he or she will still be working with bulky radios and paper maps. If the army can take smartphone technology and use it to connect 14 | WWW.DEFENCEINDUSTRYREPORTS.COM
military units, the results could be transformative. This is the idea behind DARPA’s Transformative Apps program12. The aim is to bring together a small but nimble team of technical developers to create a military apps store similar to the kind we might be used to on our smartphones. These can be used with the growing range of rugged smartphones, such as the Samsung S6 Active, which has been specifically designed to pass military specification testing. Devices such as this can perform a range of functions including command and control, disaster recovery, reporting, mission planning and intelligence. Features can include map viewing, time services, data synch, speech recognition, information assurance and peer to peer services. The rugged devices market is growing13, with developers working hard to remodel some of their most famous brands for use in hostile environments including the military. In addition, the army is turning to other exciting projects such as Google’s Modular Smartphone. Developed with Motorola via Project Ara, the idea is to create a puzzle piece phone for less
