This article discusses the relationship between the commercial and military domains, some of the key factors driving commercial development, some of the key technology trends in the commercial communications landscape, and APL’s role in this space.
INTRODUCTION
The ways of people and devices connecting to internet have changed drastically in past years. Various wireless technologies have been developed and widely taken into use. People access and share information as the “wireless Internet” and it continues to take form. The users are liking these new capabilities and want to have more of them. This relationship has started an evolution in wireless networking capabilities in the commercial domain. It is true that wireless technologies have
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Multiple factors are responsible for this trend. In the Cold War era, the military technology had to ahead of the technologies which were there in the commercial sector. Soon after this era, the military was not as well funded for the research and development which led to a lag in its state of art. Still many cases may be found where the communication technologies being used are of 70’s and 80’s. During the same period the commercialization of wireless technology took it to another level, through its enormous advantage of economy of scale. Therefore, interest in and use of commercial technologies has been steadily increasing within the Defense sector.
Today the influence and impact of commercial wireless networking technologies can be seen extensively across the Defense sector. This extent includes the adoption and use of not only commercial equipment but also military-specific equipment that has been influenced by or incorporated commercial technologies. And this trend is growing. There are many reasons for this trend (in fact, too many to list here). Many of these reasons are debatable, but there are some undeniable factors actively driving the military community to adopt commercial solutions. These factors are listed below and are also depicted in Fig.