Spectrum Situational Awareness Capability: The Military Need and Potential Implementation Issues
Abstract
RF based Military systems operate in a crowded, complex and often hostile electromagnetic environment. To succeed in such an environment requires dynamic management of spectrum, including frequency assignment. Such dynamic management needs to be informed by an effective Spectrum Situational Awareness (SSA) capability. This paper describes why the military need a SSA capability, outlining how it might be implemented, details some of the important technical factors that will need to be addressed and why. The potential benefits of a SSA are many beyond its use by battlespace spectrum managers in planning and support to communications and sensing capability in a congested environment. Others are its use in planning Information and Electronic Warfare operations, and its use for intelligence gathering in its most general sense. We argue that the demands for near real-time and extensive SSA is imperative in the modern congested battlespace, particularly in the urban environment, and will become increasingly so in the future as congestion increases and as operations become more dynamic. Some concepts for the implementation of an SSA capability are discussed showing how it may be synthesised from existing and planned capability elements, in some cases with limited modification. A number of important technology strands that need to be developed are identified and briefly described. These include the need to develop spectrum imagery techniques possibly in three dimensions, the need for a common format for data exchange, and the needs for visualisation of the data collected. The paper then examines the conclusions and recommendations that arise, including the need for co-operation between potential coalition nations for an SSA capability to be effective.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA478819
Entities
People
- Bob Madahar
- Paul Howland
- Stuart Farquhar
Organizations
- Defence Science and Technology Laboratory