Soldier WBAN - a feasibility study

The purpose of the conducted study was to perform an initial analysis of expected possibilities and difficulties when implementing a wireless body area network (WBAN) for soldier applications. The WBAN system is primarily designed to transfer data from soldier-worn sensors to a processing unit and various user interfaces. The main motivation for introducing a soldier WBAN is to reduce weight and size of the soldier equipment by replacing cables and bulky connectors with small, lightweight and energy efficient WBAN-transceivers. The challenges that are expected to arise when considering the implementation of a general soldier WBAN are multiple, including the risk that the enemy can detect the presence of our soldier's or eaves-drop on the information, robustness towards jamming and inter- and intra-system interference sources, and that the information can be of critical nature for the soldier leading to a requirement for high availability. Future soldier-worn sensors are described, both in the short and long terms, together with the user needs that are anticipated today. Initial analysis of the anti-jamming and covert capabilities have been performed for alternative technologies, which resemble those described in the IEEE 802.15.6 standard. General security aspects for WBAN's and design recommendations for future systems are also described. Finally, a roadmap is proposed for the work that is deemed needed for paving the way for a future implementation of a soldier WBAN system.