A personal level identification friend or foe system employing free space optical communications

Identification friend or foe (IFF) is a well established and important military application currently employing radio. These RF based systems are generally limited to aircraft and large vehicles such as ships. However, the recent experience in Desert Storm, involving highly mobile close support operations, was one where the inability to IFF ground targets such as men and small vehicles caused several incident of fracticide. The prevent future incidents of this sort, a manpack level IFF system seems called for. While current RF based systems might be downsized for manpack use, it is unlikely radio could provide the required resolution and low cost needed to deploy universal protection on each soldier. Free space optical communications links however, seem to offer the promise of meeting this need. The paper considers and explores the fit of free space optical technology with the personal IFF application.<>