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British Bowman System Finally Operational After a Chequered History
Don McBarnet, Staff Writer
IT IS not just the United States that has problems updating communication systems for its military vehicles on time and on budget. The damning report of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee 22 on delivering digital tactical communications through the Bowman CIP Programme gives an unfl attering insight into Ministry of Defence bungling and bureaucratic incompetence: the chapter headings provide a scurrilous summary of their conclusions: programme governance arrangements were not fi t for purpose, initial decisions were not well informed to reduce later risk including the crime of excessive optimism, through life costs were not rigorously assessed and, fi nally, after all the costs incurred, operational benefi ts are limited by reductions in the programme. 23 A sorry tale summarized by Sarah McCarthy-Fry giving evidence as “The system is incomplete and infl exible, conversion of vehicles and units has been slow, troops do not fi nd the equipment fl exible and intuitive to use and substantial technical challenges still remain to be solved.”
Bowman on Operation Leaving aside the criticisms of the process of procurement and the cost and weight of the final radios for dismounted infantry, Bowman has delivered a remarkable upgrade in communication capability to the British Armed Forces. 12 Mechanised Brigade was the fi rst brigade to be converted to Bowman and successfully completed a six month operational tour in Iraq – OP TELIC 6 – in November 2005. 7 Armoured Brigade followed on OP TELIC 7, taking its Bowman-equipped Warriors and Challenger 2 tanks. Bowman has received favourable reports from the user on operations. It provides secure data at speed: high levels of security are provided, based on the UK Pritchel crypto system together with its appliqué crypto and NATO Standard Operating Modes to allow interoperability with NATO allies. The Bowman Key Variable Management System (BKVMS) provides generation and distribution of
cryptographic key material. “Operational tempo is improved by secure, guaranteed communications, and we had that at Brigade level down to section level”, said Brigadier John Lorimer, the Commander 12 Brigade. Signalers in the Brigade Signals squadron were pleased with the reliability of Bowman, which worked well in the heat. Lt Col Ben Edwards, CO The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, speaking in BATUS during pre-deployment training, said that the clarity and distance of communication with Bowman had been “a revelation – much much better than anything we’ve had before”.
The Threat of Cyber Warfare, Jamming and Control of Military Vehicles by Opposing Parties One of the key criteria in updating software for communication systems of any sort in 2012 is the threat of cyber warfare or electronic warfare of any or an unknown sort. This has become a high priority under the Obama administration in the face of growing attacks from known and unknown agents or countries. In response to this requirement DARPA 24 has come up with a new and strong program of software to combat this emerging need. Their goal is innovative research proposals in the area of the clean-slate development of software for high-assurance cyber-physical systems. Why? Embedded software systems form a ubiquitous, networked, computing
substrate that underlies much of modern technological society. Examples include computer peripherals, communication devices, and vehicles. Researchers and hackers have shown that these kinds of networked embedded systems are vulnerable to remote attack and that such attacks can cause physical damage while hiding the effects from monitors.
New Technologies for Development of Higher Levels of Assurance Against Cyber Attack The new technologies that the DARPA researchers are trying to include are interactive software synthesis systems, verification tools such as theorem provers and model checkers, and specifi cation languages. Recent fundamental advances in the formal methods community, including advances in satisfi ability (SAT) and satisfi ability modulo theories (SMT) solvers, separation logic, theorem provers, model checkers, domain-specifi c languages, and code synthesis engines all provide potential tools and new technologies for research engineers to produce assurance against cyber attack.
And of course, this threat is of particular concern to the Department of Defense (DoD) because military cyber-physical systems are high-profi le attack targets. The problem is that all communication devices such as cell phones and radios, and vehicles such as airplanes and satellites, include embedded
systems. The result has been that there have been viruses and interference with a Landsat-7 earth observation satellite, and computer viruses infecting the ground-control systems of the Predator and Reaper remotely piloted aircraft. Current practice for dealing with this growing threat to military capability has been anti-virus scanning, intrusion detection systems, and patching infrastructure. The goal of the HACMS program is to create tools and techniques that can produce formally verifi ed software for defense vehicles. It will be especially important for vehicles where the risk and consequences of an attacker gaining control are high.
New Products on the Market with Higher Levels of Encryption, Security Plus the Ability to Work in Urban Terrain A light powerful effi cient Internet Protocol Mesh Radio with low SWAP (Space, Weight and Power) is a new Cobham product, where the fl exibility of a fl uid self-healing mesh combined with nonline of sight characteristics have proved of value to military and security users. SWAP has been reduced from a large box weighing some 2.5kg and using 20W of power, to a solution weighing just 350g and using half as much power. The IP mesh radio, despite its small size, offers true fl uid self-forming mesh, very simple set up, mobility and verifi able non line of sight communication. With fixed encryption and security options, it offers high levels of assured communication.
