Military Communications and Networks

Abstract

The articles in this special section focus on military communications. One of the key factors of successful military operations is that of information superiority: receiving relevant and up-to-date data about the situation and being able to act accordingly more rapidly than the adversary. In coalition forces, the key enabler to achieve this is interoperability. Software defined networking (SDN) and software defined radios (SDRs) are very important developments toward improved interoperability in battlefield networks. We can envision a near future where coalition operations are more agile than today, by allowing software defined reconfiguration of both networks with SDN and radio waveforms with SDR. Another development that may further lead to even more efficient communications in battlefield networks is information-centric networking (ICN). ICN approaches differ from the traditional IP addressing and client-server mindset by allowing one to access named content rather than a network address. In certain military networking situations, this new transport paradigm may offer significant increased performance, in particular, through providing increased agility in dealing with dynamic topologies where traditional IP approaches may fail. Through the novel ideas of SDR, SDN, and ICN, military operations will be better equipped to deal with a highly dynamic and hostile operating environment.