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The future of military combat brings a comprehensive suite of interconnected physical objects that are embedded with sensors, processing capabilities, and software that will exchange data in real time over both public facing internet services and dedicated military communications networks. New interconnected devices could include anything from combat gear embedded with biometric wearables, sensors for collection of imagery, audio, video, electromagnetic signals, chemical and biological agents, smart guns, and other military equipment that will advance that state of interconnected military arsenal. Adding to this evolving complexity will be new processing accelerators, distributed cloud environments, next generation cellular towers, distributed applications, sensing devices, and crowed-sourced intelligence we hope to leverage from the commercial sector. Predictive battlefield analytics and robust security strategies must be implemented for this ecosystem to be successful and not present a “weak link” for our adversary to exploit. Decentralization, low power consumption, and security are also vital to an Internet of Things (IoT) network architecture operating on the battlefield. In this investigative study, a hierarchical approach is explored. Principles of Zero-Trust which assume there is no implicit trust granted to assets based solely on their physical or network location are explored to ensure the robustness and security of the ecosystem. We explore a theoretical IoT network design using LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Networks) and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that is secure and decentralized while meeting low power requirements. To achieve this in a military operational environment, a private blockchain will be explored that has been developed by the Linux Foundation called the Hyperledger Fabric. This private blockchain based ecosystem provides a modular enterprise distributed framework with plug-and-play capabilities, decentralization, scalability, immutability, and a tailorable consensus mechanism. Integrating these capabilities will enable a more secure ecosystem of bi-directional communication, end-to-end security, and mobility.[1]
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