PI Abdelzaher, the academic lead of the IoBT CRA, was inducted to the 2019 class of ACM Fellows. ACM Fellow is ACM’s most prestigious grade of membership, recognizing the top 1% of the Association’s global membership for their “outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to ACM and the larger computing community.”  Abdelzaher was recognized by ACM for “interdisciplinary contributions that bridge cyber-physical systems, social sensing, real-time computing, and control.” More here.

Bruce D. Jette, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, and Maj. Adam Taliaferro, USA, strategist in the future warfare division of the Army Futures and Concepts Center, elaborate the role of IoT and IoBT in supporting future army concepts to Signal Magazine. More here.

Tarek Abdelzaher, a professor of computer science and  the academic lead of the Army Research Lab’s Alliance for IoBT Research on Evolving Intelligent Goal-Driven Networks (REIGN) joins the Illinois Innovators Podcast to talk about IoBT.

As the Army Futures Command celebrates its first anniversary and the progress it has made in modernizing the force, a recent study from its corporate research lab, the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), highlights one of ways in which it is modernizing. By taking advantage of the massive technological advances in the civilian Internet of Things (IoT) and applying them in service to the warfighter, the ARL is furthering the viability of an Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT). More here.

iHLS calls for increased research into IoBT systems in military application in their recent article. Citing the success of current IoBT research for developing situational awareness for soldiers in difficult terrain, iHLS calls for studies that move beyond increasing levels of knowledge for soldiers to handling the information overload facing modern soldiers. “Information overload is highly likely in a fast-flowing operational environment and the great difficulty is in processing information and passing it down the chain of command to ensure it gets to the right place.”  iHLS proposes using AI as a system to reduce redundant or extraneous information for optimized decision making in the field and development of further IoBT technology to enhance IoBT work.

Military operations are relying less on humans and more on interconnected technology for situational awareness and communication, DefenseIQ reports. A network of connected sensors utilizing cloud technology embedded within biometric wearables, combat gear, and vehicles will provide soldiers with improved capabilities for identifying a neutralizing the enemy. The Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) is closer than we think.

Lauren Saccone reports for InCompliance that Army Research Labs (ARL) is examining how smart city technology can play a role in IoBT intelligence gathering and in communication with those in the field.  ARL is primarily concerned with urban environments with high levels of sensor data and communication technologies as they test the capabilities of IoBT work to discern and disseminate crucial information to soldiers on the ground.  To test these theories, the Army is testing Long Range Wide Area Networks (LoRaWan) as a way to enhance the ability to transmit and receive data in urban environments.  Further research into LoRaWAN could have far reaching consequences for modern warfare in urban environments.

Army Research Labs reports that research into leveraging smart cities is essential for for modern warfare and soldier application.  The work of IoBT is essential for understanding and implementing the data collected by civilian and government networks of sensors, including environmental monitoring and traffic flow optimization as data points to extract useful information.  Researchers at ARL (Army Research Labs), along with IoBT researchers, are looking to sensor heavy urban environments to study and implement sensor networks that are useful for government, warfare, and civilian applications.  Dr. James Michaelis, ARL computer scientist, notes, “For IoBT systems to successfully utilize commercial IoT assets with minimal mission risk, expanded knowledge becomes necessary on the reliability and interoperability of commercial IoT protocols in urban environments.”

Optics.com reports that Philip Perconti, the US Army Research Lab director, spoke at the SPIE Defense & Commercial Sensing (DCS) conference about the importance of research collaboration with top universities.  The development of the Internet of Battlefield Things is of paramount importance to the Army of the future, explained the director of ARL.  Research will focus on multi-domain command and control as ARL and their research collaborators focus on a constantly changing digital topography and heterogenous machine learning environments.

Philip Perconti, Ph.D., director at the U.S. Army Research Lab was interviewed by Photonics Media before the SPIE’s Defense and Commercial Sensing Conference.  Dr. Perconti explains, “IoBT is a collaborative research program with university and government partners designed to bring together multiple disciplines to understand, predict, adapt, and exploit the enormous collection of networked devices that are, and will be, available.”  The concept of “mosaic warfare” explains the need for information from digital networks as an exceptional piece of the command and control puzzle modern commanders face as they combine information from unmanned and manned systems in changing warfare scenarios.