Military Applications of Internet of Things: Operational Concerns Explored in Context of a Prototype Wearable

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT), due to its inherently automated behavior and low development costs, coupled with the emergence of wireless technologies combined with small-sized hardware, has become one of the defining technologies of the last decade. IoT has therefore gained the attention of innovators of military technology, where its role could also prove to be central in gaining information dominance in the battle space. In this paper, a prototype Military IoT (MIoT) soldier wearable was built using commercially available software and hardware, supported by a private network and information-chain built solely out of free open-source software. The communication uses low-power Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) communications independent of existing infrastructure, to showcase the ability to provide military deployments with a self-driven, ad-hoc network of sensors. This work was performed in the context of the NATO research task group IST-176 “Federated Interoperability of Military C2 and IoT Systems”. In developing the prototype, we interviewed serving military personnel in two rounds: First, to gain important insights on leadership approaches to various military missions, which aided the development of the prototype. Second, to collect feedback on the prototype to conclude whether or not such a system would help increase operational effectiveness. The findings show that increased battlespace awareness is possible through automated data acquisition using MIoT. It is therefore recommended that military organizations partaking in such scenarios further investigate the usage of MIoT approaches, specifically including wearables for automating processes that until now constitute fully or semi-manual processes.