Smartphones at War

DVIDS has an interesting article about taking smartphones into combat.

Army researchers are working to develop smart-phone technology to aid warfighters in tactical environments.

In a Nov. 30 "DOD Live" bloggers roundtable, Tony Fiuza of the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command's communications-electronics center described ongoing efforts that include a program called MACE -- short for "multi-access communications extender" -- which develops a tactical communications infrastructure that can support bringing smart phones to the battlefield.

"This is a huge challenge in that we have a security challenge for the communications network and the devices themselves," he said.

A separate effort is under way to develop applications for those devices, Fiuza said. Security involving the applications is important, he said, and researchers are working on architectural issues that come into play with downloading the applications and making sure they are secure and free of viruses or malicious code.

Another issue is figuring out the concept of operation, he added -- will every soldier receive a device, and when will they be allowed to use it?

more at the link.

By: Brant