No. 2 (2008)
Published:
2008-06-30
ARTICLES FROM THIS ISSUE
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Ensuring interoperability of command and control information systems – new ways to test conformance to the MIP solution
Abstract
In the Multilateral Interoperability Programme (MIP), 25 nations and NATO develop consensus-based, system-independent specifications to achieve semantic interoperability among distributed and heterogeneous command and control information systems (C2ISs). Implementing a distributed system is a complex and error-prone task. Therefore, extensive and efficient testing of the nationalMIP implementations is critical to ensure interoperability. For MIP baseline 3, Research Institute for Communication, Information Processing, and Ergonomics (FKIE) develops a test system that checks the conformance of national C2ISs with regard to the MIP specifications. It aims at reducing the testing effort and in- creasing the quality of MIP-compliant C2IS by automating the testing process. For that purpose, formal and executable test cases are specified. The test system is used as the MIP Test Reference System (MTRS) for the official MIP system level tests. In this paper, we motivate the development of the MTRS and describe the underlying testing approach. The client-server architecture and the test language are described in detail. Finally, the status quo and an outlook on future enhancements are given.
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The prediction of terrorist threat on the basis of semantic association acquisition and complex network evolution
Abstract
In this paper, which is the continuation of an MCC 2006 Conf. publication by the same group of authors, we propose a concept of early detection of terrorist action preparation activities. Our ideas rely on semantic and complex networks to extract useful information for terrorist threat indication. Presented methods will be used as a core framework for Early Warning System.
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A seamless software defined radio development flow for waveform and prototype debugging
Abstract
With the increasing number of wireless communication standards flexibility has gained more and more importance which has lead to the software defined radio (SDR) concept. However, SDR development has to face many challenges, among them are the questions how SDR systems can be designed to achieve flexibility, architectural efficiency, energy efficiency and portability at the same time. These requirements result in very elaborate architectures and a highly increased design complexity. To cope with such complexity, we proposed an SDR development flow. During the development of such SDR, debugging becomes more efficient on a prototype hardware implementation than on a simulation model. However, error analysis on a prototype suffers from strong limitations like a reduced state visibility. In this paper, an extension to the SDR development flow is presented and successfully applied to an example SDR. It allows for an efficient error analysis with the SDR simulation model by the feedback of stimulus data from the prototype.
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Evaluation of features for the automatic recognition of OFDM signals in monitoring or cognitive receivers
Abstract
The automatic recognition of signal types is an important task of monitoring receivers and also cognitive receivers. Several modulation recognition or classification procedures exist for single channel signal types while a simple robust procedure for automatic recognition of OFDM signals is lacking because of its numerous frequency channelslying close together. The task considered in this paper is the discrimination between OFDM (or multi-channel) signals and other signal types. The number of frequency channels of the OFDM signals is assumed to be unknown a priori. So, together with the automatic OFDM detection the estimation of the number of frequency channels is treated. Several discrimination features have been examined and the most promising ones are described: measures of the variation, of the skewness, of the kurtosis, and of the specific picket-fence shape of the spectrum which is typical for many OFDM signals. For a number of real-world OFDM samples, recorded from the high frequency range, results are presented. An automatic discrimination from single channel or noise like signals is achieved and the number of system channels can be estimated.
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Theoretical and practical aspects of military wireless sensor networks
Abstract
Wireless sensor networks can be used by the military for a number of purposes such as monitoring militant activity in remote areas and force protection. Being equipped with appropriate sensors these networks can enable detection of enemy movement, identification of enemy force and analysis of their movement and progress. The focus of this article is on the military requirements for flexible wireless sensor networks. Based on the main networking characteristics and military use-cases, insight into specific military requirements is given in order to facilitate the reader’s understanding of the operation of these networks in the near to medium term (within the next three to eight years). The article structures the evolution of military sensor networking devices by identifying three generations of sensors along with their capabilities. Existing developer solutions are presented and an overview of some existing tailored products for the military environment is given. The article concludes with an analysis of outstanding engineering and scientific challenges in order to achieve fully flexible, security proved, ad hoc, self-organizing and scalable military sensor networks.
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Developments on an IEEE 802.15.4-based wireless sensor network
Abstract
In this paper a summary is given of the ongoing research at the Belgian Royal Military Academy in the field of mobile ad hoc networks in general and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) in particular. In this study, all wireless sensor networks are based on the physical and the medium access layer of the IEEE 802.15.4 low rate wireless personal area networks standard. The paper gives a short overview of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard in the beaconless mode together with a description of the sensor nodes and the software used throughout this work. The paper also reports on the development of a packet sniffer for IEEE 802.15.4 integrated in wireshark. This packet sniffer turns out to be indispensable for debugging purposes. In view of future applications on the wireless network, we made a theoretical study of the effective data capacity and compared this with measurements performed on a real sensor network. The differences between measurements and theory are explained. In case of geograph- ically meaningful sensor data, it is important to have a knowledge of the relative position of each node. In the last part of the paper we present some experimental results of positioning based on the received signal strength indicators (RSSI). As one could expect, the accuracy of such a method is poor, even in a well controlled environment. But the method has some potential.
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A survey on mobility models for performance analysis in tactical mobile networks
Abstract
In scenarios of military operations and catastrophes – even when there is no infrastructure available or left – there is a need for communication. Due to the specific context the communication systems used in these tactical scenarios need to be as reliable as possible. Thus, the performance of these systems has to be evaluated. Beside field-tests, computer simulations are an interesting alternative concerning costs, scalability, etc. Results of simulative performance evaluation strongly depend on the models used. Since tactical networks consist of, or, at least, contain mobile devices, the mobility model used has a decisive impact. However, in common performance evaluations mainly simple random-based models are used. In the paper we will provide classification and survey of existing mobility models. Furthermore, we will review these models concerning the requirements for tactical scenarios.
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A static test-bed for the evaluation and optimization of multihop wireless network protocols
Abstract
We investigate the performance of multicast transmissions in a simple stationary wireless multihop ad hoc network test-bed. We compare several methods for MANET multicast using implementations for the protocols MOLSR, SMOLSR and SMF with an approach that uses explicit multicast and link-layer retries for reliable multicast. Results from the test-bed are compared with simulation results. We find that implementing a combination of explicit multicast with a retry mechanism gives the most promising results in test-bed and simulation compared with other approaches.
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Quality of service support, security and OSPF interconnection in a MANET using OLSR
Abstract
The MANET networks are of prime interest for military networks. One of the proeminent routing protocols for MANET is OLSR, and indeed, OLSR has been used in many evaluations and experiments of MANETs. As OLSR is on its way to standardization, there are still a number of extensions that are useful and sometimes necessary for practical use of OLSR networks: such extensions are quality of service support, security, and OSPF interconnection. In this paper, we present the architecture, design, specifications and implementations that we made to integrate these features in a military test-bed. This test-bed is a real MANET comprising 18 nodes. These nodes communicate by radio and use the IEEE 802.11b MAC protocol. The OLSR routing protocol updates the routing table used by the IP protocol to forward packets.
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Automatic multicast IPsec by using a proactive IPsec discovery protocol and a group key management
Abstract
Internet protocol based networking is gaining ground in armed forces, leading to a concept described by the NATO as network centric capabilities (NCC). The goal is to enable state-of-the-art, affordable and powerful electronic information services to the troops. A tighter connection of the forces is expected to further enhance the joined strike capabilities. Providing secure information exchange within groups of armed forces is one aspect of the NCC concept. Such group communication is enabled by the multicast feature of the IP technology. Security requirements are met by using the IP security (IPsec) architecture. IPsec enables secure communication between secure private networks via an unsecured public text network. While secure unicast transmission with IPsec is common, only few achievements have been made to secure multicast transmissions. The protection of multicast data traffic of a group in an automated way is described in this document. We utilize an automatic detection of IPsec devices and an efficient key management protocol to reach our aim.
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Automatic tactical network node configuration with XML and SNMP
Abstract
In the paper, we describe a “plug-and-play” configuration of nodes of a tactical network on the basis of XML configuration templates and a network plan, developed during the network planning process. We present the concept of a configuration repository, an XML-based database that stores network structure and configuration data, and describe how the Simple Network Management Protocol is used to apply the settings to network devices. We also comment on a possible us a task.
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Subscriber location in radio communication nets
Abstract
Our aim is to develop the method of location subscriber to be used in military communication nets. This method is based on frequency offset measurement. Analytic description of the Doppler effect creates one of such possibilities. In this paper, an original location subscriber method is presented. We showed the Maxwell equations solution in the case of a transmitter continually changing location in relation to a receiver. It makes possible to calculate exactly the value of the received signal parameters especially frequency offset. The methodology described in this paper shows that the Doppler frequency offset value can be used for radio signal sources location.
