IoT, ML for Combat Identification: Technologies to reduce Blue on Blue events in Military Battlefield

The NATO initiative on Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) is a long-term effort to connect military assets across space, air, land, sea, and cyber domains. The Department of Defense (DOD) intends for JADC2 to analyze warfighting data across all of those domains to allow decision makers to identify, execute, and monitor operations more effectively.A fundamental component of this awareness is the Combat Identification (CID) System, i.e the ability to identify in real-time the position and the status (friendly, unknown, foe) of units, in high-intensity, fast-paced battle scenarios, in order to reduce Blue on Blue (or friendly-fire) events and save life. In this paper we review how Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (ML) impact both on current and future Blue Force Tracking (BFT) decision support systems and CID implementation.