1

Disposable EW – Keeping Pace with

Rapid Advances

Prof. Warren du Plessiswduplessis@ieee.orgAssociate Professor

Chair in Electronic Defence ResearchUniversity of Pretoria

2

Overview

• The problem

• Commercial technologies

• Military comparison

• Proposed approach

• Examples

3

The Problem

4

Spending Trends

• Military traditionally led commercial

– Military technologies transition to commercial

– Reversing

• Global military spending in 2012

– USD 1.75 trillion (SIPRI)

– Only 30% of aircraft cost for electronics (Flight Global)

– EW is a very small proportion of the total

• Global ICT market in 2012

– USD 4.7 trillion (Plunkett Research)

– 1.75 billion cellular phones sold (Gartner)

5

Moore's Law

6

Hard Drive Capacity

7

Personal Computers

Item 1999 2013

CPU Athlon 500 MHz Core quad i5 3.4 GHz

Main memory 64 MB + 128 MB 8 GB

Hard drive 17 GB 3 TB

Screen cardRIVA TNT2<150 MHz + 32 MB

GeForce GT810 MHz + 1 GB

Screen CRT 17” 1600x1200 LCD 22” 1920x1080

Cost R 9,930 R 7,700 + screen

Execution time 3+ minutes < 6 seconds

8

Rapid Development

• Exponential growth

– Moore's Law: Transistor count doubles every two years

– David House: Performance doubles every 18 months

– Kryder's Law: Hard-drive storage increase

– Barry Hendy: Camera resolution per dollar

• New concepts

– x86 vs x86-64 vs PowerPC vs ARM vs PIC vs ...

– DOS vs Windows vs Windows vs UNIX vs Linux vs OS X vs OS/2 vs ...

– Android vs iOS vs BlackBerry OS vs Symbian vs …

– Python vs C# vs Java vs C++ vs C vs Pascal vs ...

9

Commercial

Technologies

10

3GPP Specifications

• 1992 – GSM (Global system for mobile communications)

• 1997 – Data transfers

• 1998 – GPRS (General packet radio service)

• 1999 – EDGE (Enhanced data rates for GSM evolution)

• 2000 – UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System)

• 2002 – HSDPA (High-speed downlink packet access)

• 2004 – HSUPA (High-speed uplink packet access)

• 2009 – HSPA+ (High-speed packed access +)

• 2008 – LTE (Long-term evolution)

• 2011 – LTE Advanced

11

Mobile Phones

12

Mobile Phone Keyboards

13

Rapid Replacement

• Rapid upgrade/replacement

– Globally phone replacement averages 11 months1

• Opportunity to test different approaches

– Hardware

– Software

• Respond to

– New technologies

– User requirements

1 Sharpe, M. (2005). "Climbing the e-waste mountain." Journal of Environmental Monitoring 7(10): 933-936.

14

Military Comparison

15

Military Systems• Built for long-term use

– Many decades• Require highest possible performance

– Maintain technological edge over lifetime– High reliability– Difficult to respond to new threats

• Large acquisition projects– Discourage rapid developments– Difficult to upgrade portions of systems– Many interested parties– Political considerations

• Few suppliers– Limits competition– Closed architectures

16

JTRS GMR

• Joint tactical radio system (JTRS) ground mobile radio (GMR)

• Initiated in 1997

– Unify all services

– Software-defined radio (SDR) system

• Development

– USD 6 billion development cost

– Delays: USD 11 billion to purchase older equipment

– Canceled in 2011, funding expired in 2012

– Some portions of JTRS ongoing

• Compare to mobile phone developments in same period

17

Proposed

Approach

18

Continuous Upgrades

• Shift to a philosophy of continuous upgrades

– Major shift from large procurements and upgrades

• Accept lower performance in the short term

– Compensated by higher long-term performance

– Not incomplete systems!

• Identify appropriate technologies

– Technologies which advance rapidly

– Software and firmware

– Line replaceable units (LRUs)

19

Functionality and Interfaces

• Functionality of units and interfaces

– Must be clearly defined

– Effect on whole must be understood

• Subsystem replacement

– Upgrade subsystems without upgrading whole

– Allow competition between vendors

• Open standards

– Sometimes valuable, but not required

• Good systems engineering practice

20

Approval and Certification

• Approval and certification

– Time consuming

– Expensive

• New approach to approval and certification

– Simplify process for subsystem upgrades

– Must maintain system capability

21

Obsolescence

• Many commercial components have short lifespans

– Complicates repairs to existing systems

• Upgrade paths

– Most product lines have upgrade paths

– Select components with clear future plans

• Use lower-cost commercial components

– Continuously-upgraded subsystems

– Not in other subsystems

22

Examples

23

US DoD Cellular Phones

• DoD uses BlackBerry devices extensively

– Only approved supplier

– Expensive

– In the process of approving other devices

• US Army

– Developing platforms based on Android

– Final form still unknown

24

Software-Defined Radio

25

Software-Defined Radio

• Many platforms available– Different costs– Different performance– Based on standard volume-produced components– Open-source hardware and software

• Community funded– Volunteers

• Why not comparable military systems?– Require higher performance– Long-term support?– Reliability?

26

Conclusion

27

Conclusion

• Problem– Military spending under pressure– Commercial is huge spending growing rapidly

• Need to exploit commercial technologies– Plan for continuous upgrades– Clear definition of interfaces and functionality– Subsystem approval and certification– Accept obsolescence

• Stop competing with commercial technologies– Rather exploit inevitable technological advances

28

Thank you!

This work is based on the research supported in part by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and the Nation Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) (Grant specific unique

reference number (UID) 85845). The NRF Grantholder acknowledges that opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in any publication generated by the NRF supported research

are that of the author(s), and that the NRF accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard.

29

Photo Sources

Creative Commons license unless otherwise specified.

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Page 7: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.svg

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