In the past, military bases were built near water. Today, they're built along roads and airfields. But in the future they will be built upon "cyber." Tomorrow's cyber bases will be layers of physical infrastructure, digital networks and meshed devices, all of which will be driven by emerging innovation. More importantly, they'll be inspired and assembled by human imagination.
Luckily for Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, the base already has a history steeped in innovation, serving as a blank canvas to inspire future generations; just as innovation once inspired a teenager named Charles Lindbergh who witnessed the birth of "Wright Flyers" on Fort Myer, and who later would accomplish aviation history with his first nonstop solo transatlantic flight in 1927.
As the final part of our "History of Innovation" series,* this article highlights some of JBM-HH's initiatives aimed at a cyber-base future that builds new community partnerships, increases connectivity and better connects information and devices to people. Ultimately, by correctly assembling emerging information communication technologies (ICT) into a networked foundation, JBM-HH's future success, once again, rests in the inspiration of the next generation.
A Historical Paradigm
Fiber-optic lines are a game-changing technology, and this summer, JBM-HH acquired its own. A historical paradigm shift for the base, JBM-HH's fiber optic lines provide high-speed audio, visual and digital communication and are part of a broader national, state and local infrastructure stretching from Northern Virginia to Washington, D.C. The line serves as both a physical platform and metaphor for securing new community partnerships, increasing connectivity and enhancing security and emergency response across the National Capital Region (NCR).
The fiber-optic line also serves as the backbone for the next generation of ICT which will increasingly connect humans to devices. This emerging extensible layer, will support the inevitable growth of an Internet of Everything (IoE), where anything that can be connected, will be connected. JBM-HH's fiber optic lines are the key to opening up new possibilities in a wide range of fields such as security and force protection, community partnerships and economic development.
Cyber-Enhanced Security and Emergency Response
The first step to building the cyber-base of tomorrow is to use JBM-HH's fiber optic line to enhance security and emergency response. Cyber-enhanced security and emergency response allows the pooling of limited resources between JBM-HH, Arlington County, and Washington, D.C., to better manage law enforcement and emergency assets, and more quickly disseminate time-sensitive information. Cyber-enhanced security and emergency response increases resiliency, flexibility and the capacity to respond to potential terrorist and natural threats.
Likewise, growing ICT connections will enhance human understanding of emerging situations and allow for the better design of processes, information flows and systems to cope with more complicated threats and disasters.
In the event of an emergency, cyber-enhanced security allows for rapid coordination and restoration of critical services through a shared situational awareness. A shared situational awareness will allow more-timely prioritization of responses between military, local and national authorities and will diffuse a common understanding across a growing network that connects humans to devices.
Opportunities to share data, analytic processes and technology will build interdepartmental trust. As a result of more cyber-based joint and interagency exercises, in a future crisis, Arlington County's Emergency Operations Center could jump to JBM-HH to command and control their forces using the same situational awareness from an NCR footprint embedded with sensors.
Cyber-enhanced security will be ad-hoc and meshed. This means, that ICT networks will communicate and relay data using radio frequency, cellular or Wi-Fi to link surveillance systems, remote sensors and thermal devices. Mesh technologies are cheap, resilient and relatively low maintenance, because if one node fails, there are numerous alternate paths to transport the data.
Meshed networks carry encrypted and unencrypted data across a variety of static, mobile and variable nodes and host deployable video surveillance systems (DVSS). DVSS expand security coverage, extend stand-off and enhance comprehensive coverage via remote access controls. DVSS is both mobile and static, and capable of being configured, controlled, live-streamed and viewed through web-browsers hosted on meshed network computers and mobile devices.
Hyper-connected
The base of tomorrow will be hyper-connected. JBM-HH will leverage cyber-innovations to connect people and devices, promote community partnerships and spur economic growth. New collaborations between JBM-HH residents, workers and students will be formed from the ubiquitous access of networked information. This hyper-connectivity between individuals, groups and markets will increase virtual interactions between previously isolated pockets on JBM-HH and surrounding communities and will fuel local economic markets.
As a result of increased local interaction, micro-innovations and opportunities will grow from the transfer of ideas and resources to strengthen community bonds. Thus, JBM-HH will become a cyber eco-system, fostering a vibrant exchange of economic, cultural and academic innovation to spur mutual growth.
Hyper-connectivity is about quickly transporting information and data across local access, wireless, metropolitan and clouds to people. Multi-protocol networks will hyper-connect JBM-HH residents, students and military and civilian work force to local businesses, education, transportation and governance.
As emerging multi-protocol networks grow, JBM-HH must correctly assemble an extensible host of technologies, like virtual private networks, encrypted voice over internet protocol and dynamic public, private and hybrid clouds into usable layers.
JBM-HH must also harness the explosion of metropolitan area networks and public wi-fi hotspots to fuel development and anchor community partnerships, and must innovate new application programming interfaces to control its own IoE on the base.
Internet of Everything (IoE)
The Internet of Everything is exploding. According to a report by Cisco, there were 13 billion internet-connected devices in 2013, and there will be 50 billion in 2020. Smartphones, implants, sensors, devices and undreamed of electronics, will all connect daily life to virtual spaces. This means that as a military base, JBM-HH must be prepared for its human population to hyper-connect to virtual spaces in innumerable ways.
For instance, today social media and portable smartphones are the rage, but in the future, humans will ingest pills that relay vital signs to health providers over secure networks, and use wearable technology to emit data about their preferences for individual micro-climates.
Every human will become a node on growing hybrid-networks. As such, every human will be constantly emitting and receiving data across countless networks from innumerable locations, for limitless reasons.
In the future, big data will become more-tame, thus enabling more rapid and informed decisions to situations and circumstances. Human decisions will be made faster and more intelligent by the IoE, as they learn to manipulate their environment and virtual surroundings more efficiently and effectively.
Devices, sensors, computers and things will all be growing connections across the IoE, tying disparate data to wide-open possibilities. Increased sensing of data will better inform human decisions that in return, shape better surroundings for the JBM-HH eco-system.
JBM-HH will build controllable sensors into every structure to provide variable radiating power for mobile devices and ICT automation. There will be meshed networks that operate driverless shuttles, snow plows and grass mowers. Each of them will be remotely monitored, regulated and powered by JBM-HH's IoE.
Conclusion
The base of tomorrow will be built on cyber. From physical infrastructure, to digital networks, to meshed sensors and devices, tomorrow's cyber-base will be driven by emerging layers of innovation.
Most importantly, somewhere on JBM-HH, there is a young Charles Lindbergh who will bear witness to the birth of a networked foundation which will inspire the imagination of a future generation.
*Editor’s note: This article is third in a three-part series, A History of Innovation. See below for links to parts one and two.
• A History of Innovation (Part 1 of 3)
• Mechanization and Reorganization — A History of Innovation (Part 2 of 3)
Original publication Sept. 8 from Army Worldwide News