At the dawn of the new millennium, the U.S. military is well on the way to creating a new breed of warfighter. These warriors are plugged into digital devices to help guide and protect them in combat. Leading the way to create this future is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and an industry team of engineers and scientists.

Soldiers past, present, and future have to fight in places that are remote with high and low temperature extremes. Many of these places are not only inhospitable to soldiers but also to their communications systems. Jungles, with their thick canopies of foliage, and cities, with steel reinforced buildings, all present difficult problems for the traditional military radio systems. Creating a wireless end-to-end communications network of sensors and radios in these environments is even more daunting – but necessary in a world of changing threats.

The advance of communications technology, with its potential advantages for warfighters, led DARPA in 1998 to contract with an ITT led industry team. They developed a new generation of soldier communications called a Situational Awareness System for Small Unit Operations. Dubbed SUO-SAS for short, DARPA envisioned creating a kind of bubble around each soldier that allows them to navigate in restrictive terrain, detect and categorize threats and then collaboratively plan their actions in real time. Members of the ITT Team include several world leaders in developing new technology including Rockwell-Collins, Atlantic Aerospace Electronics, and SRI International.

The SUO-SAS Geolocation System being tested is revolutionary because it will not depend solely on the traditional GPS satellite. For all its capabilities, GPS cannot function in restrictive environments, like the inside of buildings; an environment in which the 21st Century Warrior is likely to find himself.

The SUO-SAS system will rely on a highly accurate two way, time of arrival radio ranging system for locating the position of soldiers. This approach leverages the communications capabilities of the SUO-SAS radio to perform ranging measurements accurate to within one meter in three dimensions. In addition to radio ranging, there are a number of additional sensors that will provide complimentary positioning data. These include GPS, Inertial Measurement, Barometric Altimeter, and Magnetic Compass. At the heart of the system is a highly advanced positioning filter that incorporates all the navigation data into an optimal solution that is more accurate than any of the individual sensors alone.

Meanwhile, the software driven SUO-SAS radio and its associated networking protocol are being designed to constantly probe the environment for the best way to stay connected to other radios. It does this by actually implementing physical, media access, and link protocols on a programmable modem. The system is then able to adapt as the environment changes.

Soldiers fight as a team. Teams fight best when they can share data and coordinate their actions. The SUO-SAS radio will help soldiers fight by creating a node from which it can discover neighboring radios and automatically form “islands” of connected radios. These “islands” can then adapt operating power, data rate, and available frequencies to maintain connectivity. The result is the creation of a one of a kind flexible internet over which sensor information, video, and voice can be fused and then used as part of a collaborative planning process.

Information security and the ability to remain undetected are also important to warfighters. Therefore, the SUO-SAS radio will include COMSEC and INFOSEC systems to protect soldiers from unwanted eavesdropping. In addition, transmissions will be virtually undetectable even while subjected to high levels of intentional jamming.

Work on SUO-SAS breakthrough technologies guarantees the individual soldier geolocation information, connectivity in any environment and a fusion of sensor and targeting information all over an internet that is protected from even high levels of intentional interference. For the dismounted soldier that means his chances of survival and success in his mission are greatly increased.

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