Evolving military broadband wireless communication systems: WiMAX, LTE and WLAN

Emerging technologies for mobile broadband wireless are being considered as a Commercial Off-The-Shelf solution to cover the operational requirements of the future warfare. The capabilities of these technologies are being enhanced to meet the growing market demands on performance. In this context, several standards such as WiMAX, LTE or WLAN are introducing themselves as strong candidates to fulfill these requirements. This paper presents an innovative scenario-based approach to develop a Military Broadband Wireless Communication System (MBWCS). Its main objective is to analyze how similar a military MBWCS can be to the identified civil standards, taking operational and high level technical requirements into account. This specification will be used for analyzing the applicability and the modifications of each of the standards layers individually. Proving the feasibility and aptitude of each standard provides strong foundations to address a MBWCS in the most efficient way.