Enhancing Naval Operations With Advanced Mission-Critical Communication Platforms

Enhancing

Naval Operations With Advanced Mission-Critical Communication Platforms

Future Naval Communication Demands and the Need for a Holistic Approach

Mission-Critical Communications

Building Naval Communications Systems

Implementation and Getting Communications Systems Right

The Latest and Future Developments

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Publisher

Global Business Media

Senior Analyst

Martin Richards

Editor

John Hancock

Project Manager

Paul Davies

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Introduction

Nationaldefence as well as threat deterrence, for nuclear armed powers, relies on a number of capabilities but, among those capabilities, the submarine is a very potent component based on its ability to avoid detection by an enemy. That said, a submarine, as much as any other weapons platform, needs to be able to communicate. The hunter killer vessel needs to communicate with the rest of any task force with which it is deployed, in order to receive targets and to warn the main force of identified threats. The nuclear strike vessel needs to communicate with base to enable it to receive its orders to strike. As well as looking at submarine communications, in this Report we look at associated technologies that can be used in submarines. We’ll also look at challenges and opportunities for installing technologies and implementing systems for those who have to ensure that submarine communications always work optimally with the latest available technology.

The opening article is a Questions and Answers piece from Jan Molter, CEO of Aeromaritime Systembau GmbH, which has been internationally successful in systems integration for naval communications for more than 50 years. He explains the present situation as well as the opportunities that are available, and the value of new processes, along with automation to add real value to naval communications. He looks, also, at the possibilities tht advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), will be able to offer for the future, how that

might work and what he envisages for the future of communications systems on Navy ships.

We next look at the importance of naval communications, what are modern navies doing today and some of the challenges that submarines, in particular, face as a consequence of operating for much of the time under water. Beyond that, there is some examination of a useful technology in deterministic and packet-oriented networks and why they matter for naval communications.

Following that, Camilla Slade looks at the building of communications systems in a military environment, how submarines can communicate today and some of the technologies used and technologies yet to come. The article also tackles the processes and the challenges of a network migration.

Peter Dunwell writes more about implementations, the challenges that accompany them and requirements for a successful project. He looks, also, at the challenge of fitting a communications infrastructure into a limited space and a brief overview of establishing communications systems suitable for naval use. Finally, we take a brief cruise around some of the communications technologies already in use as well as the need to integrate these with existing systems. We close with a brief look at some of the exciting developments soon to be here and what great technologies can be expected in the future.

John Hancock Editor

John Hancock joined as Editor of Defence Industry Reports in early 2012. A journalist for more than thirty years, John has written and edited articles and papers on a range of defence, engineering and technology topics as well as for key events in the sector. Subjects have included naval engineering, testing, IT, materials engineering, weapons research, supply chain, logistics and aero-engineering.

Future Naval Communication Demands and the Need for a Holistic Approach

Jan Molter, CEO of Aeromaritime Systembau GmbH Ludwig-Erhard-Strasse 16, 85375 Neufahrn J.Molter@aeromaritime.de

Interview

With more than 50 years of experience in naval communication, what distinguishes Aeromaritime from other companies?

Aeromaritime is an independent system house for maritime communication. In this context, our self-developed Advanced Platform Communication System (APCOS ®4000), as a product group, forms the core of our portfolio, which we continuously develop further in order to always be able to offer our customers a flexible and up-to-date solution. APCOS is an open system that allows our customers to freely choose the equipment and software they prefer to perform their daily tasks. Once the selection phase is completed, we develop and integrate the complete system on a turnkey basis and according to the customer’s budget.

Aeromaritime has highly qualified staff with a strong focus on maritime communication requirements as well as an understanding of customer needs. Therefore, it is possible to maintain fast response times in the projects and, most importantly, to implement them quickly. In addition to our APCOS product group, which includes our proprietary “Communication Handling System Manager” (COSYMA) control software, we have more than 400 Secure Military Message Handling Systems (SAMMS) in operation worldwide. Finally, our business includes advanced submarine antennas. Over the years, we have delivered antenna solutions for more than 150 platforms, making us the market leader for conventional submarines.

With ever higher complexity of scenarios as well as the increase in the number of subcomponents and signals, where do you see the challenges in system design and system integration?

Communication within a ship is important and always has been. The same applies to communication with other ships and landbased headquarters. This has proliferated over time into more complex and larger structures as systems from multiple nations have been added. In the future, communications within a task force will become increasingly important. Their composition will constantly change and so will the participants and the interfaces. Integrated communications systems (ICS) will need to manage the access of participants within such task forces while they are located on different platforms. This in turn will require a holistic networking approach.

New technologies such as video streaming and cloud-based services require greater data transfer rates over today’s common voice communications, chat and data exchange. More and more subsystems increase the complexity

Aeromaritime has highly qualified staff with a strong focus on maritime communication requirements as well as an understanding of customer needs

and also the data volume. In addition, time and again, the effect can be observed that whenever the bandwidths on the transmission lines are increased, these higher bandwidths are immediately used by the applications.

Naval operations, especially in the international environment, require compliance with several different secrecy standards and procedures simultaneously, as they apply at the national or alliance level. Therefore, a “red-black” separation is no longer sufficient. Scaling up the conventional approach using tunnels makes the ICS unwieldy and unmanageable.

As the level of automation advances, the number of sensors increases. Elements of a battle group such as other ships and drones also grow the number of sensors to be considered and included in the network. When everything is taken into account, more information data will be available. It is a misguided approach to meet these challenges by magnifying the number of networks within the ship. Because this raises the amount of networking and therefore the cost and maintenance, and in turn increases the complexity of the overall system.

With the different kinds of Communication Systems currently in use on ships, what is your approach to handle them in future systems?

The architecture must provide a high degree of flexibility. In other words, it must be adaptable to different customer needs. Fail-safe architectures have become established in recent decades, as the ICS must be available and operational for the crew even if a critical subsystem fails. However, systems are becoming increasingly cluttered and therefore hardly flexible.

In addition, the architecture must also ensure expandability. Subsequent upgrading and installation of subsystems and components due to rapidly changing technologies must be easily possible. This should be cost-effective and should require only a small amount of development and implementation effort. For example, a triplex system with triple-mode redundancy (TMR) - a commonly used method in fault-tolerant systems - is not scalable and thus not easily expandable. Extensibility must also be considered in software concepts. For example, the realization of software-based functions in self-adapting software architectures is promising. A future ICS will be able to quickly establish small ad hoc networks. Voice, text chat, e-mail, streaming of images and videos, web browsing and other Internet-like applications will be supported.

Because of cross-domain interoperability, certification could become a factor.

What are the challenges in networks on future naval platforms to serve a higher degree of automation?

The holistic networking of all control and communication systems on the ship is the prerequisite for autonomous ships. At the same time, short and deterministic transmission rates must be possible. For autonomous operation, in which the ship independently plans and decides sequences of steps to achieve a given goal, sensor and effector information must be transmitted reliably and contain effective mechanisms to increase fault tolerance. Control responses due to incorrect or disturbed signals can have catastrophic consequences. Signals can fail, be disrupted, or even

New technologies such as video streaming and cloud-based services require greater data transfer rates over today’s common voice communications, chat and data exchange

compromised. Therefore, signals must be checked for plausibility very reliably, across the entire effect chain.

To create more autonomous ships, data transmission must be based on a fail-operational architecture with functional safety. Functional safety means ensuring an acceptable level of safety by implementing automatic technical protection so that human or systematic errors and hardware or software failures cannot harm personnel, other systems, or the environment.

The architecture is to be open enough to integrate a variety of systems and products and to incorporate a wide range of information from the networked military community. Software is also tailored for real-time signal processing. Since computing units themselves can also fail, autonomous functions implemented in software components on distributed computers appear very promising.

We need standardized interfaces and hope that this idea will receive wide attention in our community so that we can implement it together.

Are there new possibilities with the advanced technologies?

In ship formations, there is the possibility to process the information from the sensors of all associated ships. The flexible selection of available sensors or the extension of sensors to escort ships in network-centric warfare leads to a further flood of information. Furthermore, the sensor configuration cannot be determined in advance. Especially in military operations, formations are expected to change constantly and sensors and effectors will fail or be added. Therefore, reconfiguration at runtime is also a prerequisite for autonomous decisions of a technical system.

We will also see a similar development to that of smart buildings in marine platforms. The internet of things can do more than just smarthome-devices. The ship sections and systems exchange their data with each other and thus create the greatest possible added value for users, operators and the environment. Of course the data exchange cannot be done on mobile phone standards. Here the ICS will contribute. As of today Artificial Intelligence holds an unlimited number of possibilities.

Will Artificial Intelligence be a topic in naval communication systems in the future?

Artificial Intelligence is a great opportunity to cope with some of the future requirements. The ability to learn and react appropriately in difficult situations and solve problems will reduce personnel, especially system administration. This will decrease the number of operators. The ICS will make more autonomous decisions internally without human intervention. It can also supervise the operator and protect against unintended input. This includes weighting and ranking information and handling it in terms of different security levels.

The recognition of the current configuration and the reconfiguration of the system can be supported by Artificial Intelligence. An example is the learning of start times and the duration of the transfer of settings with accuracy for each individual component and the optimization with these findings of the operating time of the overall system. This makes the system flexible for extensions of its components and functionalities. Another idea is to learn typical configurations in specific scenarios. With these observations, the ICS can produce derivations for standard or default settings, thus relieving the operator.

To create more autonomous ships, data transmission must be based on a failoperational architecture with functional safety

What is the vision of Aeromaritime about future communication systems?

In modern integrated naval communications systems, many of these requirements are already in place in the initial implementation phases. Since highly available data transmission is critical, ship control, battle management systems and communication systems could be merged in the future. The ICS could serve as the foundation for the holistic approach to managing the flow of navigation and CMS data - not to take over their functionality, but to make CMS and navigation better and more efficient, because these systems will then focus on their actual tasks.

Through our developments and efforts in the aforementioned topics, we will continue to stay at the cutting-edge of technology for the world’s navies. Aeromaritime will be a leading provider and integrator in the fields of secure and tactical communication and electronics as well as surveillance, with own products and related services.

Jan Molter

Jan Molter is the CEO of Aeromaritime Systembau GmbH, located in Neufahrn near Munich, Germany. Aeromaritime has been internationally successful in systems integration for naval communications for more than 50 years. Jan Molter has many years of experience in managing highly skilled and specialized staff and a naval background through his extensive service as a commander on German Navy submarines. His experience in the navy, complemented by his many years of experience in industry, give him an understanding of the needs of customers, enabling them to be put into practice in a targeted manner.

Aeromaritime will be a leading provider and integrator in the fields of secure and tactical communication and electronics as well as surveillance, with own products and related services

Mission-Critical Communications

John Hancock Editor

Naval communications systems priorities, deterministic and packetoriented networks

In the Musical Film ‘Follow the Fleet’ Fred Astaire sang, “We joined the Navy to see the world. And what did we see? We saw the sea…” Sometimes, songwriters are the best at summarising reality. Naval forces today meet a multiplicity of requirements from war fighting, their traditional role, to heading off situations that might lead to conflict, (prevention is better than war), enforcing sanctions, keeping trade routes open, humanitarian missions, and simply showing the flag on courtesy visits to friendly nations. Most of this, except courtesy visits, usually happens in the middle of an ocean and/or far from home base. Naval operations are challenging for communications and, for submarines in the fleet, those challenges are heightened by the fact that they are often underwater, an environment that poses further obstacles to communication with the added priority that submarines are most effective when undetected and yet communications, even internally, create signals that an enemy can use to locate the submarine. Submarine communications with the outside world, carried out while submerged, use VLF (Very Low Frequency) or ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) radio waves because only very low or extremely low frequencies can penetrate the water at those depths (see later articles).

In response to this, designers of naval and, especially submarine, communications systems are always looking for better ways to do things. As Thales puts it 1, “Mission-critical communications rely on network and infrastructure systems which play a vital role in making the world better and safer.”

Priorities for Naval Communications

Thales, again, ‘Royal Navy integrated communications provision’2 explains how, “Above and below water, Royal Naval vessels contain complete integrated communications systems [covering] everything from the voice and data terminals, emergency telephones, and broadcast and alarms found throughout the boat or ship through to the communications

management system and its integration with V/ UHF radios HF radios and satellite terminals, enabling effective communication within and outside the vessel.”

Systems integration is very important for a modern Navy. In the article, ‘Maritime communications systems for the naval industry’, Naval Technology3 states that, “The success of maritime defence missions is dependent on reliable and secure command and communication solutions that allow quick decision-making. An integrated navigation system as well as maritime communication systems enable secure voice and data communication across military assets.” Naval Communications systems today not only have to cover Maritime Domain Awareness (situational awareness and threat awareness) but also the communications requirements of a multiplicity of mission types identified above. Designing a communications network for a Naval force is a challenge in itself.

Designing Networks for Deterministic and PacketOriented Information

Two terms that will often be heard when talking about naval and submarine communications are ‘deterministic’ and ‘packet-oriented’, but what do they mean?

Deterministic communication is when the network can guarantee that an event will occur (or a message will be transmitted) within a specific, time period. According to Motion Control Tips4, “Determinism provides a measure of reliability that the communication or output will not only be correct but will happen in a specified time.” That is very important for some functions. Speaking generally, the editor of ComSoc Technology News5 said, “For many important emerging services and applications, being late is as bad as a dropped packet.” That principle would certainly apply to many defence actions. In this, it isn’t only the efficiency and care of the operator that determines determinism (pun

Naval operations are challenging for communications and, for submarines in the fleet, those challenges are heightened by the fact that they are often underwater, an environment that poses further obstacles to communication

intended) it is at the design, development and architecture stages that the network must be built with deterministic capability. Also, to ensure that it remains so, the architecture must support future expansion, upgrades and integration with wholly new systems to ensure that the capability remains credible and able to cope with new challenges without the need for a new implementation. Putting this into the context of a naval and submarine environment, ships often operate with a number of associated ships, each of which has a number of sensors and communication systems all of which must be capable of working together without causing any decay in the deterministic capability of any of them.

One clear case where a deterministic service is vital is with packet switching, where data is broken into small blocks to be transmitted over different channels and reassembled into their original order at their destination. Another case where a deterministic service is essential is with ring topology where a computer will be connected to two other computers to create the ring. As part of the system, each computer is given access to a transmission within a specific time interval: in this case, the nature of the network topology is deterministic.

Packet switching is, according to indeed6, “a data transmission process. Sending devices reduce files into small packets before transferring them to other devices, creating a more efficient

References:

data transfer process between networks. Once a device receives the packets, it reassembles them for users to read or access.” There are several advantages with packet switching including the efficiency of sending large files in small packets which uses available network bandwidths more efficiently. It also deals with the risk of failure in one device, which would prevent transmission of a file to that device; packet switching, automatically re-routes any package where it detects that the receiving device has failed. And it can detect if any of the packages is missing and request the sending device to re-send, thus ensuring that all of the file is received. Also, packet switching networks don’t require so much equipment and so are more cost effective.

Summary

In one sense, all naval communications are mission-critical inasmuch as the performance of everything in the network that informs and support any naval mission will be critical to mission success. But naval communications are, of necessity, of a much higher level of complexity not only because of the environment in which they operate but also because of the multiplicity of connections and collaborations that make up many naval missions, including the need to work with other navies. Hence the commensurate complexity of communications systems used by navies which we’ll cover in the following articles.

1 Thales https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/communications-pour-missions-critiques

2 Thales https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/europe/united-kingdom/markets-we-operate/defence-uk/maritime-solutions/maritime-solutions-13

3 Naval technology https://www.naval-technology.com/buyers-guide/maritime-communication-systems/

4 Motion Control Tips https://bit.ly/45caxh8

5 IEEE ComSoc, ‘The Quick and the Dead: The Rise of Deterministic Networks https://www.comsoc.org/publications/ctn/quick-and-dead-rise-deterministic-networks

6 indeed, ‘what is packet Switching? (Plus FAQs and Benefits)’ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/packet-switching

There are several advantages with packet switching including the efficiency of sending large files in small packets which uses available network bandwidths more efficiently

Building Naval Communications Systems

Camilla Slade, Correspondent

The challenges of communications for the military and the challenges of a network migration

As already stated in John Hancock’s article above, communications are critical to any military operation and that is particularly true for naval forces, which often have to operate far from base or any fixed support structures. Naval task forces are structured to have everything they need within the force, but the force must be able to communicate with base, which might be thousands of miles away. Beyond that, the priority is for ships to be able to communicate with each other and, within each vessel, for the crews to be able to communicate; and all in a secure manner. The upshot is that there will be a multiplicity of communications systems for different purposes but that also must be able to work together, which means that, among other things, those systems need to be capable of integration, a significant challenge in itself. Also, from time to time, systems will grow old and/or be superseded by more modern, more capable systems. In that event, it will be necessary, as with any IT networks, to move everything from one place to the new place.

Communications in a Military Environment

Because of the environments in which they have to work, military and maritime communications platforms have to be robust, reliable and accessible, with networks that are both deterministic and packet-oriented (see previous article). Also, because a lot of military communication requires higher than usual levels of security, the system used needs to be able to separate classified information from the routine and to ensure its security. Because of all these requirements, a military communications system needs to bring together several systems in an Integrated Communications System (ICS) that can handle a diverse range of functions in a challenging environment.

That is particularly the case for submarines, which spend a considerable amount of their deployments under water. Water acts as a shield to protect submarines from detections, but also poses real but not insurmountable challenges for communications with the outside world. Radio

waves do not travel well through salt water and that means that, when submerged, submarines cannot establish normal radio communications with their base. There are solutions available such as surfacing to raise an antenna or deploying an antenna on a tethered buoy, but both give rise to risks of detection and, as submarines rely heavily on that sub-surface capability to avoid detection, would defeat their main purpose.

Because of this, communications with submarines while submerged employ ELF or VLF radio waves whose extremely low or very low frequencies can penetrate the water. However, ELF and VLF transmissions are not usually powerful enough to travel more than a few hundred feet in water, so to make them work over a longer distance there is the need to build very highpowered transmitters with huge antennas which then can become targets themselves. Also, low frequencies cannot cope with the data volumes routinely exchanged in today’s communications, and often can only communicate in morse code. To address this, there is a lot of research underway to find alternative technologies for this purpose. In Naval Technology, ‘Deep secret – submarine communication on a quantum level’1, Berenice Baker explains that “One potential solution is to carry out optical communications using a laser, a concept which has been around since the 1980s when experiments were carried out to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain an optical channel between a submarine and an airborne platform.”

All of this adds up to a complex group of solutions on board a submarine, but with a limited amount of space on board to house and operate the technology. One solution, according to Calhoun2, is a “Common Submarine Radio Room [which] is the latest step by the submarine force towards implementing a modular approach using an open systems architecture and increasing the automation of communications network management.” The piece continues to explain the benefits of a Common Submarine Radio Room (CSRR) housing a number of systems that can all act alone but

Because a lot of military communication requires higher than usual levels of security, the system used needs to be able to separate classified information from the routine and to ensure its security

are better when acting together as a system of systems (SOS) with the capability for redundancy so that, if one system fails, another might take-over. In order for this to happen, it will probably require some degree of network migration.

Network Migration

In a network migration, data and programs are moved from one network to another; that can be for an upgrade of a legacy system, a capacity expansion, when two organisations need to work together or for an add-on to an established network. Migration entails a process that makes it possible to put migrated files onto another network or to bring two independent networks together. One technology that can help with this is a data gateway. Services can generally connect to cloud data sources without a gateway. However, a data gateway might be needed if data sources are behind a firewall, require a VPN, or are on virtual networks. It can let multiple users connect to multiple data sources, plus a data gateway can

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provide a link for secure but fast data transfers between data housed on various devices and the Cloud. But even using a data gateway, as alexsoft explains in ‘Data Migration: Process, Types and Golden Rules to Follow’3, “[The] process is not as simple as it may sound. It involves a lot of preparation and post-migration activities including planning, creating backups, quality testing, and validation of results.”

Another challenge when undertaking data migration between networks is that it is often seen as risky. NetApp, ‘What is data migration’4, explains that the reason for that is, “… data gravity. Although the concept of data gravity has been around for some time, the challenge is becoming more significant because of data migrations to cloud infrastructures.” The article explains that the term ‘data gravity’ describes how data attracts other data as it grows, how it is integrated in the organisation and how it will have become customised over time. In short, it describes the effect of normal usage.

1 Naval Technology https://www.naval-technology.com/features/featuredeep-secret-secure-submarine-communication-on-a-quantum-level/

2 Calhoun, ‘Common Submarine Radio room: a case study of a system of systems approach’ https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/36736174.pdf

3 altexsoft https://www.altexsoft.com/blog/data-migration/

4 NetApp, ‘What is data migration?’

https://www.netapp.com/data-management/what-is-data-migration/#:~:text=Data%20migration%20is%20the%20process,or%20location%20for%20the%20data.

Migration entails a process that makes it possible to put migrated files onto another network or to bring two independent networks together

Implementation and Getting Communications Systems Right

Peter

Dunwell, Staff Writer

Getting implementations right includes fitting the infrastructure into the available space

With as complex an array of communication systems as have already been described in John Hancock’s and Camilla Slade’s articles, users are always seeking better ways to get optimum performance from their systems which, as often as not, will mean introducing a new technology. However, as readers will know, introducing a new technology to a complex but established system is not as simple as it sounds. Developing or finding a new technology that will improve the capability of your systems is just the first step. Implementation is the much more important process that will ensure that the new technology gets all the data it needs, integrates with the systems with which it needs to work and does not interfere with the operations of any other systems. However, the process of implementation has its challenges.

Implementations and the Challenges They Bring

Challenges to or obstacles in an IT implementation can stem from a number of sources. There might be opposition from key stakeholders, the roles and responsibilities for various actors in the implementation might not have been properly defined and agreed, the resources allocated might not have been enough, or the implementation might cross the paths of other parts of the organisation. In her blog for walk me, ‘7 software implementation challenges & how to solve them’1, Michal Wagner identifies, and explains seven common software implementation challenges:

• Misaligned expectations;

• Data integrity;

• Employee readiness;

• Project team preparedness;

• Lack of vendor support;

• Inadequate software training; and

• Declining productivity.

Everything needs to be identified, quantified and agreed; leave nothing to interpretation or chance.

In the Harvard Business Review article, ‘Implementing New Technology’ 2, Dorothy Leonard-Barton and William A. Kraus explain

that, “Introducing technological change into an organization presents a different set of challenges to management than does the work of competent project administration.“ they continue to argue, “That involving users in a new technology’s design phase boosts user satisfaction is quite well known, but the proper extent, timing, and type of user involvement will vary greatly from [organisation to organisation].”

Communications Infrastructures in Limited Spaces

Much of the above are general truths, but we need to think about it in terms of doing all of that on board a naval submarine and, given the structure of a submarine, in a limited space. However, there is a place for general truths. In Navy Lookout, ‘From concept to reality – the next generation of naval subsea technologies’3, envisages a new deployment of a mothership submarine managing a small fleet of autonomous and uncrewed platforms in order to remotely conduct successful operations, even in unsafe environments, “… and with minimal threat to platforms and personnel.” In this, the article says, “one of the biggest challenges here remains communication and data sharing between platforms… radio signals that travel through air die very rapidly in water, and acoustic signals, or sonar, sent by underwater devices mostly reflect off the surface without breaking through...” issues that have already been mentioned in this Report.

One new idea that will make any implementation or installation project on a submarine easier to plan for and execute is the digital twin. Although relatively new, digital twins are already being adopted in many areas and, at least one reason, is that they provide the opportunity to test ideas, such as wiring layouts, on the twin in order to deal with any problems before they materialise. This will be a great help in the confined space onboard a submarine where, discovering an issue at a later point in the implementation might mean having to dismantle all the work carried out so far and start again. The time and cost implications

Challenges to or obstacles in an IT implementation can stem from a number of sources. There might be opposition from key stakeholders, the roles and responsibilities for various actors in the implementation might not have been properly defined and agreed

are considerable. In , ‘How Digital Twinning Is Helping Improve Submarine Communications’4, Tracy Gregorio explains that, “It’s important to understand why traditional RMA [Reliability, Maintainability, and Availability] vetting is so difficult. Field-testing opportunities are limited because submarine communications systems are too important to risk deploying unproven test units. It is also costly, if not entirely impractical, to create physical test versions that mirror the real-world conditions of ocean and warfare.” A digital twin allows testing of all possibilities and ‘what-ifs’ to be conducted before any physical installations needs to take place; thus, minimising the possibility of having to undo and redo jobs where a problem materialises during implementation.

Communications in confined spaces is an issue in its own right and, while the article is written for the commercial market, the statement, “Operators need systems and technologies that can withstand challenging conditions and provide reliable and safe links for those in the confined environment.”

from Andy Gamble, simoco, ‘Tackling critical communications in confined spaces’5, is just as true for submarines. Particularly with electrical installations, installations in confined spaces need to be well planned to avoid any kinks or pinching in the wiring or any exposure of personnel to a torn cable. There are also issues with heating if wires are too tightly wound and bound and with magnetic fields that could interfere with functions.

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Establishing Communication Systems for Naval Applications

For naval applications, mission-critical communications must be reliable, accessible and secure. Achieving that can be a challenge. To illustrate the scale of the challenge, Leonardo6 explains that, “Modern Naval Communications System (NCSs) need to cope with the emerging MDA [Maritime Domain Awareness] aspects and… with evolving mission scenarios which include war fighting, peacekeeping operations, shipping lane patrolling, piracy deterrence, economic exclusive zones surveillance and oil platform protection, as well as search and rescue activities.” That’s what the communications need to do but what capabilities are needed to achieve that.

SAE International , ‘Mobility Engineering’7 suggests that battlefield communications systems need to be…

• Rapidly deployable and reconfigurable for mission readiness.

• Designed for minimal spectral footprint to minimize risk of detection.

• Secure against spectral manipulation tactics and immune to remote disruption.

• Ruggedized to survive harsh environment deployment, but small enough in form factor to enable maximum mobility.

• Open-source and future-proof to enable the seamless integration of next-generation systems and technologies.

In the next article, we’ll look at how developers are working towards those challenging goals.

1 walkme Blog, ‘7 software implementation challenges & how to solve them’ https://www.walkme.com/blog/7-software-implementation-challenges/

2 Harvard Business Review, ‘Implementing New technology’ https://hbr.org/1985/11/implementing-new-technology

3 Navy Lookout https://www.navylookout.com/from-concept-to-reality-the-next-generation-of-naval-subsea-technologies/

4 Defense One https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2023/01/how-digital-twinning-helping-improve-submarine-communications/381940/

5 Simoco, ‘Tackling critical communications in confined spaces’ https://simocowirelesssolutions.com/2017/12/21/tackling-critical-communications-confined-spaces/

6 Leonardo https://electronics.leonardo.com/documents/16277707/18299996/Naval+Communications+Systems+mm08977.pdf?t=1669300320186

7 SAE International, Mobility Engineering https://www.mobilityengineeringtech.com/component/content/article/adt/pub/features/articles/45918

Operators need systems and technologies that can withstand challenging conditions and provide reliable and safe links for those in the confined environment

The Latest and Future Developments

John Hancock, Editor

With current technologies and future developments, naval communications remains a live and thriving development area

In the previous three articles, we’ve not only covered submarine communication technologies but also some of the challenges faced by those who have to install and implement those technologies and some of the wider technologies that are relevant to these sorts of installations. Readers will have gathered that, for submarines, communications are a complex matter, vital for their ability to communicate with other ships but also a potential risk for detection in certain conditions. In this concluding article, we want to explore the need for seamless voice and data connectivity, intercom capabilities, and integration with third-party equipment. We’ll also consider maintenance issues plus we’ll look at a couple of emerging trends and technologies.

Seamless Voice and Data Connectivity, Intercom Capabilities, and Integration with Third-Party Equipment

When voice and data are both run on a single network, not only can costs be managed but also productivity or effectiveness will be improved as will speed; plus, collaboration will be better facilitated. As SEACOM1 puts it, “High-speed web access with minimal delays is essential for any modern enterprise. The rapid shift towards digitisation means that efficiency, productivity and cyber security are reliant on true seamless connectivity.” While written in a commercial context, this will also be true for naval submarines. But what is ‘seamless connectivity’? it is usually understood to be an internet line on which digital systems can run with no breaks or delays caused by slow connections. Users get immediate access to data and web-based applications. Intercom is a different capability with which readers will be familiar. It facilitates voice communications within a facility which, in this case, is a submarine. The intercom can be used to issue general or targeted orders or to disseminate information about the submarine or routines and procedures.

Given the complexity of the systems we have considered and the confined space in which they

are housed and used, routine maintenance is essential, as is the ability to effect prompt repairs, and all with as little disruption to operations as possible. We saw in the previous article the value of a digital twin to improve an installation and implementation by allowing a full range of tests to be conducted without the need for physical exposure. Digital twins are also of value in the planning and execution of a maintenance programme. Not only can the maintenance crew arrange their work with optimal efficiency, but they can also identify safe access points to the system.

Emerging and Future Trends and Technologies

Communications are critical, As Navy Lookout states2, “Over [the last twenty years], the Royal Navy and the rest of the world’s navies have become increasingly aware of the growing need for, and importance of secure communication, both above and below water, in delivering military effect and capability, as part of a modernised, more agile, more operationally versatile, and more interoperable maritime force.” Communications nowadays is not voice or email but also data and modern fleets rely to an increasing degree on radio and satellite technologies along with the growth of a network-centric environment. As Naval Technology, ‘The Future of Naval Communications’3, explains, “… today’s systems must not only be operational at any time, but also during intense military engagements. They must also ensure secure and stable connectivity as well as interoperability between a number of different kinds of platforms…” It is vital that the technology keeps pace with the requirements.

One technology likely to be harnessed is the Internet of Things (IoT) with which Brendan Hyland, founder of WFS (Wireless for Subsea) Technologies4, anticipates, “long networks of wireless sensors extending for several miles into littoral waters from the shore, for environmental and shipping channel monitoring, and which could even function as undersea ‘landing strips.” He expects data processing to take

Digital twins are also of value in the planning and execution of a maintenance programme.

Not only can the maintenance crew arrange their work with optimal efficiency, but they can also identify safe access points to the system

place increasingly on the seabed, to minimise the energy requirements of transmission. In 2019, Thales5 delivered to the Royal Navy a communications solution that contains, “complete integrated communications systems... Systems cover everything from the voice and data terminals, emergency telephones, and broadcast and alarms found throughout the boat or ship through to the communications management system and its integration with V/UHF radios HF radios and satellite terminals, enabling effective communication within and outside the vessel.”

A very topical and not so future technology is Artificial intelligence (AI) whose abilities to gather, organise and use information in order to support decisions will certainly be of use not only in situations and engagements but also in running the systems more efficiently and with less need for human input on the administration of the system. AI can also ‘remember’ all processes and timings in a system and its operations with faultless reliability. Like the digital twin, it will offer a range of options to operators and will even re-calculate if changed parameters are introduced to it.

There is also a system known as ‘Acoustic transmission’. As Ryan White, in Naval Post6 described, “Sound travels far in water, and underwater loudspeakers and hydrophones can cover quite a gap. Apparently, both the American (SOSUS) and the Russian navies have placed

References:

1 SEACOM https://bit.ly/3OECHKi

sonic communication equipment in the seabed of areas frequently travelled by their submarines and connected it by underwater communications cables to their land stations. If a submarine hides near such a device, it can stay in contact with its headquarters.”

Sounding most futuristic of all is the introduction of quantum technology in submarine communications. It offers the chance not just of better communications over a broader range of applications but also rapid underwater communication at a level of secrecy protected by the laws of physics themselves. Berenice Baker writing in Naval Technology, ‘Deep secret –secure submarine communication on a quantum level’7 sets out the challenges facing submarine communications, including the challenges posed by using quantum technologies. The idea uses laser optical communications to connect a submarine with an aircraft or satellite: that has been around as an idea since the 1980s. But more recently, explains Berenice, “The Quantum Technologies group at defence technology specialist ITT Exelis is looking at taking this a step further through research into the feasibility of laser optical communication between a submarine and a satellite or an airborne platform, secured by using quantum information.”

Naval communications are in rude health and, as importantly, continuing to develop.

2 Navy Lookout https://www.navylookout.com/stop-collaborate-and-listen-the-technologies-enabling-underwater-naval-communications/

3 Naval Technology https://www.naval-technology.com/features/feature87881/

4 Basicint, ‘Impact of emerging technologies on the future of SSBNs’ https://basicint.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Pugwash_SSBNs_ConferenceReport_v8.pdf

5 Thales https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/europe/united-kingdom/markets-we-operate/defence-uk/maritime-solutions/maritime-solutions-13

6 Naval Post https://navalpost.com/how-do-submarines-communicate-with-the-outside-world/

7 Naval Technology https://www.naval-technology.com/features/featuredeep-secret-secure-submarine-communication-on-a-quantum-level/

A very topical and not so future technology is Artificial intelligence (AI) whose abilities to gather, organise and use information in order to support decisions will certainly be of use not only in situations and engagements but also in running the systems more efficiently