Assured Communications Training Workshop
Taken from the U.S. Army Field Manual, assured communication refers to the certainty of priority electronic transmission capability when needed throughout the strategic, operational and tactical areas of operations.
Assured communications enable the operator to make crucial decisions based on his sight picture of the battlefield derived from real-time enemy or friendly data. As net-centric warfare continues to evolve and operators engage in disparate environments, assured communications becomes vital for success.
Success in complex missions, whether in the civilian, military or mixed sectors, depends on agile organizations adapting their enterprise approaches to suit the purposes and circumstances at hand, and being able and willing to communicate necessary information.
Case studies of complex endeavors in theaters including warfare, terrorism, and response to natural disasters have shown that communication failures are a very significant cause of adverse consequences, often including overall mission failure.
Communication failures can be behavioral ones, exacerbated by inappropriate organizational choices.
An important aspect of assured communications is developing and utilizing state-of-the-art technology.
Assured communications is an important approach to assuring that communication systems work freely especially during times of disaster and warfare.
Mission Assured Communications (MAC) is especially critical to providing communication when needed. Mission Assured Communications is defined as those real-time information exchange systems and capabilities deemed critical by the warfighter to the success of special operations activities and their associated missions at the command and control level to the battlefield level.
Military and disaster response organizations have a demanding operational need for assured communications in time of conflict. Satellite failure, jamming and severe weather and terrain can all affect stable communications.
Combat resiliency, as an example, is the ability of a commander to prosecute, control, and consolidate their sphere of influence in adverse and changing conditions. To support this, an infrastructure must exist that allows the commander to view the world in varying degrees of granularity with sufficient levels of detail to permit confidence estimates to be levied against decisions and course of actions.
An infrastructure such as this should include the ability to effectively communicate context and relevance within and across the battle space. This can only be achieved with careful thought, planning, and understanding of a network and its capacity limitations in post-event command and control.
Assured Communications Training Workshop by Tonex
Assured Communications Training Workshop is a 4-day training course, workshop style that covers the principals of Assured Communications, its use cases, application, architecture, protocol stack and challenges. Assuring communications requires both new solutions to fill gaps and effective technology for integration.
In order to create a communication network, IT infrastructure, electromagnetic spectrum and cyberspace that enables mission command, we have to adapt how we approach including the structure and function of our information systems, and also how we use them.
Beyond the employment of improved technologies, adversaries will continue to rapidly evolve and adapt by employing novel tactics/techniques, capabilities, and resources to challenge us interests. The challenge is to pace with the commercial sectors on AI, data, analytics, modern cellular technologies, NFV/SDN, and machine learning as our competitors and adversaries rapidly acquire and leverage these technologies, anticipating emerging challenges and, when necessary, maintaining the ability to rapidly respond to erupting crises through non-traditional means or the employment of overwhelming force.
Participants will learn about Mission Assured Communications (MAC) referring to real-time information exchange systems and capabilities deemed critical by the warfighter to the success of special operations activities and their associated missions at the command and control level to the battlefield level.
Key capabilities with “zero failure” include ability to successfully execute Hostage Rescue and Recovery (HRR), Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD), and Countering Terrorism (CT) missions globally, at any time, under all conditions, unilaterally and with partners, to eliminate threats to the Nation.
Who Should Attend?
This course is intended for anyone that needs a deep introduction to Assured communication. It is ideal for those wishing to learn about the key assured communications capabilities, architecture, protocols and much more.
Learning Objectives
After completing this course, the participants will be able to:
- Describe assured communications key principles, capabilities, functions, systems, technologies, architecture, and protocols and
- Step through threat simulation and modeling
- Identify various interfaces and related protocols of assured communications end-to-end networks and systems
- Step through the life of assured communications to understand key operations of assured communications
- Identify complementary technologies and their role in assured communications
- Summarize deployment status of assured communications
Course Outline
Fundamentals of Assured Communications
- Key Definitions of Assured Communications
- Assured Communications Key Concepts
- Assured Communications Key Capabilities and Enablers
- Assured Communications Constraints
- Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Center’s Science and Technology Directorate
- Assuring communication equipment interoperability
- Maintaining unmatched advantage
- Discovery, development, and rapid injection of the most effective technology opportunities into small units to meet future challenges, opportunities, and threats
- Technology changing the geopolitical dynamics between state and non-state actors-that include violent extremist organizations
- Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), materials, manufacturing, robotics/autonomous systems, long-range precision strike weapons, biotechnologies and energy will have a significant impact on future warfare and military instruments of power
Threats Modeling and Simulation
- Kinetic
- Electronic warfare (EW)
- Cyber
- Space
- Nuclear
- Natural disaster/weather
Assured Communications Technology Enablers
- New Technologies
- Robust Waveforms and Networks
- Make links stronger against threats
- Signal processing: improved modulation, multi-user detection, …
- Adaptation: spectrum, data rate, multi-polarization, routing/interfaces, …
- Antenna technologies: multi-beam, adaptive, nulling …
- Multiple frequencies: L, S, Ku, Ka, X, W, optical
- Identify jamming or interference vs. Other network impairments
- Classification of jamming techniques and localization of interfering emitters
- Maintaining capacity in a robust anti-jam waveform
- Achieves spectrum efficiency
- Jamming Resilience
- Communications that are resilient even in contested environments
- Throughput
- Warfighter demands for communications capacity
- Antenna Technologies
- Adaptive steering
- Spot beams/nulling beams
- Directional antennas
- Robust Networks
- Novel modulation & coding algorithms
- Improved networking technology (IoT, 5G/6G and IPv6)
- New frequency bands
- Examples of key capabilities
- Robust / improved
- tactical data links
- Resilient weapons
- data link
- Cross-platform air-to-air connectivity
- Surface connectivity
- without SATCOM
- Contested ISR
- dissemination
- Robust ground
- waveforms
- Mid-tier ground
- connectivity
- Detection,
- correlation and replanning
Assured communications with its enablers
- Mobile ad-hoc networks/long-range smartphone/LTE networking
- Multi-path communications for various vehicles (manned and autonomous)
- Unattributable networks
- Low Probability of Interception (LPI), Low Probability of Detection (LPD)
Principles of LPD/LPI/LPE
- Low Probability of Interception (LPI), Low Probability of Detection (LPD), Low Probability of Exploitation (LPE)
- Minimize probability of signal detection
- Minimize probability of signal interception
- Minimize probability of signal exploitation
Principles of Spread Spectrum (SS)
- Direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS)
- Frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS)
- Hybrid systems
- Directional Antennas
- Geo-Location
- Protect confidentiality of blue forces locations
- Example: Allied geo-location of ships via
- HF/DF
- Achieving LPD/LPI goals can reduce ability of adversary to geo-locate our highly mobile warfighters
RF transmissions are intercepted and degraded/denied by adversary
- Expeditionary communications that function in remote locations, highly
- contested or denied environments with equipment that is “plug and play”
- Systems that can switch among several transmission types
- Frequency-hopping, azimuth-filtering network
- Multi-transmission capable surveillance systems (video, audio, motion
- detection, etc.)
- Secure (encrypted) communications and data exchange
- LPI/LPD
Local Global Positioning System (GPS) coverage is intercepted and degraded/denied by adversary
- Non-GPS navigation
- Non-GPS tagging/personnel recovery systems
Long range, high data throughput communications
- LPI/LPD
- Resistant to jamming
- Capability to communicate in a satellite-denied environment
- Must support transmission and reception of secure digital communications
- Must be operable with Internet Protocol networks
Assured Communications Performance Considerations
- Coverage
- Mobile user throughput
- Survivability
- Endurance
- Low probability of detection (LPD)
- Restoral
- Situational awareness
- Operations management
- Terminal system synchronization
- Continuity of service
- System availability
- Capacity
- Spectrum
Assured Communications Flexibility and Agility
- Failover to another domain
- Spectrum aware
- Spectrum sharing
- Agile across channels,
- bands, & waveforms
- Manages links & data
Assured Communications Resiliency
- Networks
- Able to adapt to changes in
- topology
- Capacity/congestion
- Adversarial action
Assured Communications Mobility
- Equipment failure
- Environment
- Leaving/joining network
- Self-healing networks
- Traffic re-routing
- Physical layer
- Able to maintain the links despite
- Disparate gateways, apertures
- 4-D mobility (time, azimuth, height)
- Equipment failure
- Adversarial action
Assured Communications Protection Schemes
- Ability to overcome specific, directed, defined level of adversarial attack
- Electronic warfare
- Cyber
- Kinetic, nuclear electromagnetic pulse
- Power adjustments
- Directional antennas
- Stealth waveforms
- Adaptive routing around jamming
- Covert communication mode
- Overall robust network architecture including sensing and adaptation to
- physical and network attacks
- Incorporate diversion and deception into waveform design
Converged Communications and Electronic Warfare
- Cooperation among blue force communications, jamming, and sensing
- Information sharing: network time, location, and transmission schedules
- Multi-function operation: blue force communications waveform to jam red force communications
- Adaptation: modify waveforms
- Spectrum sharing/awareness, and agility
- Scheduling of disparate asynchronous signals among numerous nodes
- Spatial separation of communications, EW: EA, and ES
- Reliable signal reception for communications and ES while performing EA
- Use of EW assets for augmentation of communication transmitters/receivers and paint masking signals for covert operations
- Interference alignment for higher capacity and covertness
- Continuous contingency planning and war gaming at the network and physical layers
Resilience Through Autonomous Adaptation
- Make the collection of links stronger than the sum of the individual parts
- Heterogeneous networking: multi-path routing, network coding, and ad-hoc
- Network interface and control: common status reporting, link selection and optimization
- Rapid network adaptation in the presence of sudden changes in the
- electromagnetic operational environment
- Collective reporting and efficient dissemination of the radio environment characteristics
- Sensing at a fast time scale to detect communications and network attacks
- Vigilant monitoring of network to detect compromise and attempts for intrusions
- Isolate compromised subnets upon detection and reconstitute compromised networks
Workshop 1: Sustained combat operations assessments
- Capability requirements considering rapid changes occurring in the strategic operating environment
- Technology changes and geopolitical dynamics between state and non-state actors-violent extremist organizations.
- Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), materials, manufacturing, robotics/autonomous systems, long-range precision strike weapons, biotechnologies and energy will have a significant impact on future warfare and military instruments of power.
- AI, facial recognition, and biometric tools at ports of entry and even crowd-source screening in public
- Venues identify and tracks individuals
Workshop 2: “Mission Assured Communications”
- Fundamentals of Mission Assured Communications (MAC) i
- Real-time information exchange systems and capabilities
- Operations activities and their associated missions at the command and control level to the battlefield level.
- “No-Fail” missions.
- Ability to successfully execute Hostage Rescue and Recovery (HRR)
- Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD)
- Countering Terrorism (CT) missions globally, at any time, under all conditions, unilaterally and with partners, to eliminate threats to the Nation
- Innovation Ecosystem by reaching out to systems to be reliable, beyond line of sight (BLOS)
- Capable non-ambiguous (clearly understood), and capable of real-time or near real-time data exchange rates.
- Capability Requirements
- Mission activities or anticipated threats
- Assured communications and agile organizations
Assured Communications Training Workshop