Integrating Cellular Handset Capabilities With Military Wireless Communications

Traditionally, for tactical Command & Control (C2), the Marine Corps utilized strictly voice communications as a result of continued reliability, modern innovative technology vulnerabilities, and the lack of ubiquitous data connectivity. Recently, driven by the technology advances there has been a shift in the paradigm toward more utilization of data applications, such as tactical chat and Blue Force tracker. This paper presents distributed, wireless, cellular-handset integration concepts to significantly increase data capabilities on the battlefield. The authors envision three different technical approaches to integrating cellular handset modifying the handset's software to facilitate tethering with deployed tactical radios, bridging with a standalone mobile cellular base station, and modifying the military tactical radios and minimally modifying the cellular handsets to create secure wireless interoperability.