IoT for Defense and National Security

1Internet of Battlefield Things: Challenges, Opportunities, and Emerging Directions

Maggie Wigness¹, Tarek Abdelzaher², Stephen Russell³, and Ananthram Swami¹

¹U.S. Army DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, U.S. Army Futures Command, Adelphi, MD, USA

²Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

³Department of Research Opportunities and Innovation, Jackson Health System, Miami, FL, USA

Abstract

The internet of battlefield things (IoBT) is expected to be a major feature of future tactical wireless networks. Multiple challenges arise from the expected scale, heterogeneity, information sharing (in a joint or coalition environment), dynamics, and actions of sophisticated adversaries. The chapter will discuss these challenges in detail, and explore emerging directions which provide opportunities to enable a scalable, secure, and performant IoBT.

1.1 IoBT Vision

The rapid emergence and acceptance of the internet of things (IoT) has been fueled by advances in machine intelligence and networked communications. When appropriately managed, each of these two aspects makes the collection of “things” more practical, capable, and coordinated. We refer to an IoT operating with military “things” and under military constraints as the internet of battlefield things (IoBT). The IoBT is already becoming a reality [1, 2], and will likely become a dominant component of the future battlespace [3, p54], [4].

IoBT research challenges arise ...