Conduct of the Test 92 

We decided to utilize five Marine officers as the operators of MSAT for system testing. All had at least four years of military service, combat experience in Afghanistan, and little to no experience with employing sensor systems in combat. We sought out these personnel because of their familiarity with LP/OPs, their ability to provide feedback on the utility of such a system, and their lack of specialized sensor training. In no way were the operators evaluated, as the focus of the test was strictly the ability of the system to support LP/OP operations.

a. Scenario

We formulated a mock scenario to frame the system testing. The scenario involved establishing an LP/OP as part of a platoon in a static defensive position. The LP/OP would be responsible for reporting all movement (enemy, friendly, and neutral) within its assigned TAOR.

The following fragmentation order was created to describe the scenario and was briefed to our operators before testing began:

Situation: You are a fire team leader in 3rd Sqd, 3rd Plt, Company B, 1/3.

You are currently conducting defensive operations with your Plt, in an effort to secure the town of Del Montia, while humanitarian assistance is provided to the inhabitants of the town, in order to prevent enemy insurgents from entering the city and disrupting the humanitarian efforts.

Mission: Screen to the north of the Plt’s position in order to provide early

warning to the Plt of enemy approach along ASR Red.

Execution: Utilize MSAT as an automated LP/OP in support of your

platoon’s defensive scheme of maneuver.

Administration/Logistics: You will utilize a ruggedized tablet, in

conjunction with the tactical network provided by MSAT.

Command/Signal: Upon enemy contact, generate and send a SPOTREP

to the platoon CP utilizing MSAT’s integrated chat application.

b. System Setup

The setup of the testing site is depicted in Figure 35. The TAOR for the LP/OP was an east-west running road and trail bounded by a lake to the north, located on the campus of the Naval Postgraduate School. Foot and vehicle traffic in this area would be canalized due to the restricted nature of the terrain—the TAOR was bounded to the north by a lake and to the south by wooded terrain. Therefore, the most likely avenue of approach for any enemy traveling through the AOR would be the east-west running road and trail. The hypothetical platoon battle position was located one hundred meters south of the TAOR for the sensors, behind a hill with a clump of trees, such that the TAOR would not be visible from the main battle position.

Figure 35. Testing Site

(1) Node Placement and Spacing

To enable monitoring of this most likely avenue of approach in the TAOR, 14 sensor nodes were emplaced along the road. Nodes were positioned on both sides of the road and trail for a total frontage covering approximately 200 meters. All nodes were emplaced by a single individual who carried the nodes in a specialized load-bearing pack designed for carrying antelope by hunters, shown in Figures 36 and 37. The nodes were spaced an average of 25 meters apart laterally along the road, and spaced approximately 20 meters apart (the width of the road) across from each other on either side of the road.

Figure 36. Side View of Nodes in Load-Bearing Pack

(2) Use of Sink Nodes

Two of the 14 nodes emplaced were configured as sink nodes. The role of these sink nodes, in addition to acting as sensors themselves, was to relay data from the non- sink nodes that were communicating via the SAS ground-radio protocol, to the monitoring station attached to the 802.11 wireless network, essentially acting as a bridge between the SAS and Wi-Fi networks. The purpose of using two sink nodes instead of connecting all of the nodes to the 802.11 was to limit traffic intensity on the wireless network that would affect application performance, conserve power on the majority of the nodes by turning off their Wi-Fi radios, and to circumvent the limitations of the 4G/LTE Hotspot. The Hotspot was limited to only 10 simultaneous Wi-Fi connections and had only a limited range (approximately thirty meters) that could not fully encompass all of the nodes, especially the ones at the outer edges of the sensor field.

(3) Camera Placement

The AXIS Camera used for visual over-watch of the sensor field was the only system component that required an external power source. Thus, the camera was powered via a 100W inverter, plugged into the cigarette lighter of a pickup truck; the camera was placed on top of this truck. The truck-mounted camera was positioned in the center of the TAOR (Figure 35) such that it would be capable of observing down the eastern and western avenues of approach. The camera was connected via Ethernet cable to a portable, battery powered 802.11 access point configured to act as a relay between the camera’s video server and the 4G/LTE Hotspot. Utilizing this wireless relay, the camera’s server was connected to the local Wi-Fi network and assigned a dynamic IP address via the 4G/LTE Hotspot’s DHCP server, making camera controls and video feed accessible from the rest of the network.

(4) Tactical Wireless Local Area Network (TWLAN)

In order to transition the MSAT from the lab to an outdoors testing area, there needed to be a mobile network in place. MSAT components were networked utilizing 802.11 g. A Verizon 4G/LTE Hotspot (MiFi 5510L) provided the Wi-Fi bubble for the sink nodes, the camera, the application server, and the mobile monitoring devices to

communicate and also access to the outside Internet via Verizon’s 4G infrastructure, which provided coverage at the testing area. The Wi-Fi was secured using WPA2 with a pre-shared key (PSK). All connected components, to include the ADAPT nodes, utilized this key to gain access to the network.

(5) Application Server

The application server was installed on a laptop located inside the cab of the pickup truck, located with the Hotspot and the camera. The laptop was powered with its own internal battery.

(6) Monitoring Devices

An iPad Mini tablet with a ruggedized case and a Samsung Galaxy Tablet were used for the monitoring platforms.