Page 32 - GCN, August/September 2017

EMERGING TECH
The U.S. Army built Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles equipped with networked radios, sensors, and associated equipment and software. Designed to withstand improvised explosive device attacks and ambushes, the vehicles delivered an integrated voice and data capability through the entire brigade combat team, from the commander to the soldier on the ground.
By contrast, the Defense Department might be ahead of the curve. Although much of the government movement on IoT adoption is happening at the city level, DOD adopted IoT-like technolo- gies long before the term “internet of things” was coined in the late 1990s.
DOD has been using automated sen- sors for the better part of a century and has been “connecting them to comput- ers for decades,” DOD spokesman Lt. Col. Jamie Davis said.
Niels Jensen, senior vice president of U.S. government sales at cybersecurity vendor ForeScout, said DOD has taken a forward-leaning approach to the IoT. The U.S. military “pioneered what ev- eryone today calls the IoT years ago by treating air, sea and ground equipment as platforms and embedding them with more networked sensors and control systems,” he added.
The department also has industrial controllers on many networks, includ- ing power generation and water man- agement systems, he said. “Bases could eventually resemble connected smart cities.”
In addition, DOD has deployed IoT devices in green buildings and for en- vironmental monitoring, health moni- toring and facility security. The Pen- tagon is buying vehicles with sensors and controls already embedded, Davis said, adding that the IoT offers several benefits in a military setting, including the ease of deployment and low cost of operation.
“Millions of IoT devices are installed in DOD facilities, vehicles and medi- cal devices,” he said. “The newest DOD green buildings have tens of thousands of sensors.”
And Bort said that at some point, DOD will embed sensors in uniforms as a way to monitor the health of combat troops. “We’re not far away from that,” he added.
DOD officials released a set of policy recommendations for the IoT in Decem- ber that cites several benefits, including better tracking of military assets and
Officials in Orlando, Fla., are using sensors and connected devices to manage traffic flow and reduce utility costs for government buildings, among other initiatives.
32 GCN AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017 • GCN.COM
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