War(ship) Driving For 802.11b Controlled Destroyers

Jason Straight writes "There's a story at pcworld, that describes how navy warships will be equipped with 802.11b networking to allow the captain to control the ship from anywhere on the ship. " The point of the article also gets into the issue of cutting manpower for the ships - going from 300 people on each to destroyer to 90, and makes the point that the only way to do is through automation.

Comments

Re:Dumb and Dumber

[swissmonkey]

Taken from http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/july13/cov2.h tm that you provided in your other post :

The ship had to be towed into the Naval base at Norfolk, Va., because a database overflow caused its propulsion system to fail, according to Anthony DiGiorgio, a civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet Technical Support Center in Norfolk.


So obviously it had nothing to do with NT4, it was due to a database problem, that's completely independant of the OS underneath.
They could have run their ship with QNX or whatever else, had there been an overflow in the database software, the result would have been the same.

Yeah, right

[ejaytee]

I happen to write software for a few Navy platforms, and this article is not quite on target.

For starters, the idea is to reduce emissions and radar signatures, not enhance it. Since a $200 parabolic antenna can pick up WiFi at 20 miles, and get enough of a signal to make use of it, 802.11b has a problem here. Of course, on a subsurface plaform this is not an issue.

Second, huge sections of Navy ships are RF quarantined, with no emissions allowed. Sometimes it's for security, sometimes it's because they don't want RF signals popping up around weapons with very sensitive electronics. Even the captain has to follow these rules. I said the first paragraph wasn't an issue for submarines, but this paragraph is, in a big way.

Third, 802.11b enabling the captain to "run the ship" from anywhere presupposes that the captain can "run the ship" whenever he or she has a network connection and... what, a PDA or PC? Again, nope. The captain has a staff, external communications, and a ton of sensor data. About the best the captain can do with a PDA is to see what's for dinner and check email.

The author had no clue, or was being mislead...

[trims]

First off, there is no need for the captain to be "instantly reachable". It's not like he's the only one which can make command decisions on a ship. It's been a while, but IIRC the title of the person who is in control of the ship is the Officer of the Deck. Should neither the captain nor Executive officer be on the bridge, one officer is designated the OOD and has effective command of the ship. Now, in a crisis, the XO and Captain almost always attempt to return to the bridge to reassert command, but the OOD can make all decisions (including breaking previous captain's orders, should the OOD deem it necessary) until relieved. So, it is silly to design a system to allow the captain to controll the ship from anywhere. Someone in the chain of command is already doing that from the place most suitable to do so, the bridge (or CIC, as appropriate).

Second, virtually all ships have a voice intercom systems set up throughout, which can relay orders back to the bridge far faster and more efficiently than some silly handheld WAP thingy. They're hardwired, so no emissions. They are invariably redundant, and far more likely to survive damage than a WAP system.

Finally, reduced manpower is a great goal, but generally is highly driven by putting in machinery which requires fewer operators. Communications systems are not really any manpower saver. And, as noted by others, you need twice as many people on a ship as it takes to operate all machinery: remember you have to run the ship 24x7, so you need at least two shifts (there's a little overlap, but 2x is a good rule of thumb), and you better have some extras for damage control and casualty replacement. So, you'll get manpower savings by automatic ammunition loading systems, better fire-supression, more efficient engines, better EW weapon systems, but not by adding WAP points.

Dumb idea.

-Erik

Re:The author had no clue, or was being mislead...

[Micro$will]

On my ship, we usually had enough people for 3 shifts, 4 hours on, 8 hours off. The reason for written logs is to:

Keep people awake and busy

Keep records of equipment performance

Force people to walk around and keep an eye on things

Provide written proof that the first three things are being done It would cost thousands of dollars per compartment to monitor everything that could go wrong.

During normal working hours we did maintenance. That includes fixing whatever broke and preventive. There aren't any extra people on board that just fix stuff. Whoever is qualified to operate the equipment usually maintains it too.

Also, if someone sees that a critical system is going to fail, the EOOW (Engineering Officer Of the Watch) is the person to notify. The ChEng will know soon enough when he hears the ECC alarm, the lights go out, and he senses that soothing feeling of the ship bobbing helplessly along in the middle of the sea.

MM3 CheezyDee (U.S.S. Mauna Kea)

Proper operation

[Andy Dodd]

I believe that proper operation in this case is to trap the error and kill the application in question.

But in that SmartShip debacle, the OS trapped the error and killed itself instead of the errant application... Starting a chain reaction that caused EVERY MACHINE on the control network to crash. Not just one small routine, but the ENTIRE NETWORK.

It's all about damage compartmentalization. Something the Navy knows quite a lot about in the mechanical world...

Might not really be 802.11b with WEP

[Dman33]

You talking about WEP? a gig of captured data and it's cracked.

You are right about WEP. The thing is that nobody said anything about WEP so I would imagine that they are not using it since it is well known to be easily compromised. I would place my bet on them using either TKIP (better than WEP but not best) or AES. The problem is that I think AES is in the 802.11i spec not 802.11b. I wonder if they are really going to use 802.11b as the article states or if it is a proprietary 802.11x implementation?

Note: This article is a really good primer on 802.1x excryption techniques. They state that AES is now a Federal Information Processing Standard, FIPS Publication 197, that defines a cryptographic algorithm for use by U.S. Government organizations to protect sensitive, unclassified information. The Secretary of Commerce approved the adoption of AES as an official Government standard in May 2002.

So no, WEP is not likely.

Navy Stuff

[PSaltyDS]

[Retired Navy with 20 years as a Data Systems Tech.] That line in the article about the captain having "control" of the ship from anywhere was poorly written and reflected the writer's imagination, not the Navy's intent for this kind of technology.
To begin with, the captain ALREADY has "contol" of his ship wherever he is, even while in the shower. At the same time, the captain of a ship NEVER has "control" of his ship even when on the bridge. The point is what you mean by control. The ship is always under the captain's command, but he does not execute those commands himself. The captain never takes the helm, takes over damage control efforts, or actually uses any weapons systems himself. He gives the commands to see that those things are done, and is responsible for the training and performance of the people who do it. The article makes an unnecesary jump from wireless networked remote mechanical sensors and controls, to operational command and control.
As an example, the article mentions tying in the Integrated Condition Assessment System (ICAS), which is a system I know something about. This system is used to track the material condition and readiness of the ship, and to track damage control and engineering plant information. Wireless remote sensors might be a big improvement to that system, but is not going to result in steering the ship from Damage Control Central or the Chief Engineer's stateroom.
A good point is made about automation being a required step towards smaller crews on Navy ships, but that is not the only requirement by far. For example, a ship has a certain number of exposed square feet of steel and aluminum that require a certain number of man-hours per month to maintain. Sticking with damage control items - every water tight door, emergency light, and fire extinguisher/hose/nozzle on the ship gets weekly inspections and monthly maintenance. Automated "rust sensors" won't change those efforts a bit.
When a ship is in port overseas, usualy one third of the crew is "on duty" at time. The other two thirds can go ashore and see the sights. That leaves only 30 out of 90 onboard to man a dozen or so Quarterdeck and security watches through six four-hour watch periods. When half of a crew of 350 is on Christmas leave, you can still get enough people together to bring onboard the truck loads of milk, bread, printer paper, and spare parts that just arrived on the pier.
The scary thing in this is the possibility that the Navy will reduce the crew size without finding ways to reduce or outsource all these low-tech mundane tasks too. But I have reason to believe they are considering this issue, so I think the most likely change would be a reduction from 350 to 250, with high-tech wiz-bang stuff providing half the reduction, and marine contracting of some low-tech paint roller action providing the rest.