Published in Military Embedded Systems
Written by Dominic Perez
Military wireless networks in the military can be secured through the proven use of NSA-approved Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) encryption. CSfC is a set of approved architectures using two layers of commercial encryption (as opposed to Type 1 military-only encryption) for access to classified networks. The layers, software and/or hardware, must be developed independently and validated to international Common Criteria standards. Today, it’s possible to rapidly set up a mobile, extendable wireless network qualified to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 9 [denoting that a technology has been “flight proven” during a successful mission]; using Wi-Fi 6, multi-hundreds of megabits of throughput can be rapidly deployed in the field.
One advantage of wireless networking – beyond the speed of deployment – is that it can deliver true network resiliency. It supports mesh topologies, which can eliminate the threat of a single point of failure in the network, so the loss of a single node or access point won’t bring down the entire network.
A mesh network, which can exist in many different topologies and come in a variety of formats, can route across the network with direct-hop, single-hop, or multiple-hop data distribution to connect any two nodes on the network. For wireless meshing, many in the military think of MANET [mobile ad hoc network] radios. While MANET radios support various meshing topologies, modern implementations of good old 802.11 Wi-Fi do as well. A major advantage of Wi-Fi is its low hardware cost: Even in rugged and outdoor applications Wi-Fi benefits from true commodity pricing. MANET requires each operator to have their own MANET-compatible radio, which is fine for handheld communications. It’s less than ideal, though, for data-based comms that require the user to plug into a laptop or tablet already equipped with Wi-Fi hardware.