Connecting the Battlespace: C2 and IoT Technical Interoperability in Tactical Federated Environments

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become one of the defining technology trends of the last decade. It has also attracted the attention of military technology innovators as a means to gain information dominance in the battlespace through improved situational awareness. Conducted as part of the NATO research task group IST-176 on “Federated Interoperability of Military C2 and IoT Systems”, this research investigates a secure approach to connect heterogeneous assets that rely on widely used and standardized technologies. To demonstrate the approach, a set of planned experiments is presented in which systems from different nations are connected in a federated environment. The results of the experiments aim to demonstrate the feasibility of integrating battlefield assets, including soldier systems and IoT devices, to support collective C2.