Technology Focuses on Video Conferencing
Written by Amy Stark
MIT 2009 Volume: 13 Issue: 10 (November)
Multi-Point Meetings and Delivery to
Warfighters on the Tactical Edge.
As video conferencing becomes an entrenched aspect of day-to-day military decision-making and operations, technological advances are increasing its security and pushing its capabilities into a number of new areas.
With recent developments in video conferencing technology, scores of new uses are being explored, including multipoint meetings between senior leaders and defense contractors, delivery of important information to troops positioned in remote tactical locations, and medical assistance to surgeries being conducted thousands of miles away in a war zone.
For the military, video conferencing can also take on particular personal significance. Not only can the technology bring families together instantaneously with their loved ones stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also military leaders can speak eye to eye with their subordinates and private industry partners for effective communication to review detailed documents without leaving their offices and to ensure that the commander’s intent is understood.
A host of companies, including Ultra Electronics Criticom, Polycom, Cisco, HP, and Tandberg, are involved in the technology. Each has carved out its expertise and contributions to the technology that benefits the military. In reviewing the nuances of each offering, however, certain capabilities distinguish the technology. These include the ability to switch between secure and non-secure video conferencing venues; obtain multipoint access; offer high resolution; and carry out inter-carrier accessibility. The mobility of networks can also be critical.
Ultra Electronics Criticom, for example, considers its products as “go anywhere video conferencing,” according to company President Bill Sapp. That’s because Ultra Electronics Criticom delivers secure and non-secure video communication tools that focus exclusively on delivering secure, certified and automated end-to-end video conferencing solutions for government and military organizations.
“Essentially, these tools support their mission-critical communication needs,” Sapp said.
These solutions include engineering, integration, maintenance, information assurance, professional services and program management. Consequently, about 98 percent of its business is with the Department of Defense.
ISEC is Criticom’s flagship product line. It provides automated, fail-safe video communications solutions that meet an organization’s classified and unclassified conferencing requirements, from command and control to the warfighter, through the simple flip of a switch.
“The primary customer of our ISEC product is DoD,” Sapp remarked, noting that the company delivers the only TEMPEST- tested, DISA JITC- and NIAP-certified secure/non-secure switch solution.
SECURITY CERTIFICATION
Certification is essential because an IP system may become a target for unauthorized or malicious users and must be secured against these threats.
“Many of our DoD constituents have to traverse both secure and non-secure networks,” he explained. “As video conferencing became more of a DoD mainstay, they either put in separate rooms for secure and nonsecure video conferencing, or employed a system that handles both.”
ISEC solutions permit users to change security levels or networks in minutes, eliminating complicated manual processes and the need for dedicated IT support. “And we engineer to Defense Information Systems Agency [DISA], Joint Interoperability Test Command [JITC] and National Information Assurance Partnership standards that simplify multi-security video conferencing,” Sapp added.
In the past, it would take upwards of 40 minutes to manually move networks over from secure to non-secure or vice versa. “Now this can be certifiably done in three minutes or less by throwing the switch,” he explained. “And with this particular system, only one video system is needed.”
ISEC is the only DISA-certified secure video conferencing solution that provides the customer with both ISDN and IP network capabilities.
“We can add the large screen, cameras and additional features to enhance video conferencing and go beyond standard video conferencing,” he said. “Whatever domain they need to go on, they can do it in a matter of moments.”
Most important, the switching system is fail-safe. “When switching to unsecured mode, the product goes through a whole host of tests and removes all of the classified IP addresses,” Sapp explained. “If a general has back-to-back calls, he can make a classified call, then flip the switch and three to four minutes later, is ready to go again. He can be confident that the system works.”
ISEC is available as a stand-alone switch that can be integrated with any video conferencing system or as part of a comprehensive suite of video solutions. To ensure flexibility and ease of use, ISEC products support standard industry interfaces for codecs, encryption devices, power and device management, providing further value for an organization’s video conferencing investments.
OPTIMIZING COMMUNICATION
A leading supplier of telepresence, video and voice communication solutions, Polycom is well known for its commitment to open standards and interoperability across its portfolio.
“This commitment has led to a number of defense organizations standardizing on Polycom solutions,” explained Roseanne M. Cohen, Polycom federal market director. “In competitive evaluations, organizations such as NATO, the National Defense University and the Defense Acquisition University chose Polycom over other solutions because of the quality of experience, rich feature support and seamless interoperability with other standards based video conferencing equipment.
“With the budget constraints our government customers are facing, it is increasingly important to maximize the longevity of existing technology investments,” Cohen continued. “They want to be able to phase their transition to unified communications and high definition visual communication. Polycom provides that through flexible infrastructure solutions and backwards compatibility across our endpoints.”
Polycom’s infrastructure systems for video, voice and unified conferencing are deployed extensively across military and federal government agencies.
“We provide multi-point conferencing solutions that bridge audio and video participants together in a scheduled or on-demand basis regardless of their network,” explained Cohen. “Whether a user is dialing in from an analog phone at their desk, from an IP video endpoint in a command center or from a legacy ISDN system, our platforms can support voice, video and data in a multipoint call over IP, VoIP, PSTN and ISDN on a single platform.”
Polycom’s conferencing infrastructure solutions are among the most widely deployed throughout DoD, Cohen said, and are ideal for virtually any customer application, including those that rely heavily on ISDN and/or have special network requirements. The Polycom RMX 2000 and 4000 are next-generation platforms, which Polycom says are designed for high definition and telepresence applications, greater scalability, better fault tolerance and simplified administration.
“Many of our federal customers need to support not just hundreds, but thousands of users. Polycom infrastructure supports this scalability and also provides high flexibility, allowing customers to maximize capacity based on the actual systems they have on their network, which today typically means a mix of HD and legacy video conferencing systems, but tomorrow may be primarily HD,” Cohen stated.
Polycom is experiencing an increased demand for its high definition telepresence solutions throughout military and government agencies to support a wide variety of applications. However, Cohen says interoperability with traditional video conferencing systems will remain an important requirement for the foreseeable future.
For example, in 2009 NATO deployed Polycom Telepresence Experience immersive telepresence systems in six international locations to improve operational efficiency, interagency collaboration and enhance its ability to support out of area operations. These next-generation HD systems join an existing large deployment of Polycom video conferencing systems in use today at NATO headquarters and in outposts around the world. Standardsbased interoperability was a key consideration for NATO, which needed the telepresence systems to interoperate securely and seamlessly with video conferencing systems in use by NATO allied partners.
"These systems are mission-critical for NATO, which uses them daily for central command communications, emergency management, critical needs assessment, crisis communications, intra/interagency collaboration, workgroup collaboration and project management,” said Cohen. “Providing native interoperability with existing systems increases the ROI of this investment significantly by greatly expanding the collaboration possibilities.”
Polycom is committed to staying on the leading edge of supporting federal and military security requirements such as IPv6, JITC and FIPS 140-2, among others. The company currently supports all of these requirements across the Polycom HDX endpoint product line, and expects to receive certification for its RMX platform before year’s end. “We attribute much of the demand in this space to our products meeting the stringent security requirements of our federal government customers,” Cohen observed.
Not only are Polycom’s endpoint solutions secure, but also they support HD resolutions up to 1080p starting at just 832 kbps. Most systems deliver “standard definition” (SD) or 4CIF (common interface format) resolution, which is similar to broadcast television, starting at 256 kbps.
“HD delivers the best possible video quality, but many networks will not always support the high bandwidth requirements of an HD call. That is where SD and lost packet recovery [LPR] technology comes into play,” Cohen added.
LPR is a Polycom algorithm designed to protect the video and audio quality of IP video calls from network packet loss. The ability to correct errors without having to wait for network transmissions makes it especially well suited for real-time IP-based communications. “Polycom’s LPR technology helps customers receive a consistent, high-quality experience, even when the network is dropping packets or is congested due to high traffic,” she said. “This helps ensure high quality for mission-critical military and government applications.”
“Overall, visual communication technology is helping agencies optimize network- centric communications—improving situational awareness so that well-informed decisions can be made, regardless of location,” said Cohen.
ROBUST CAPABILITIES
Cisco has several models under its Tele- Presence video conferencing systems that are significant to military uses.
The TelePresence 1000 model, for instance, is designed for one-on-one meetings. Last September, Cisco provided the use of its Cisco TelePresence CTS-1000 models to NATO to enable soldiers in Afghanistan to meet with loved ones as though they were in the same room.
Here the models are capable of seating two participants inside robust shelters built to withstand extreme weather conditions and transportation over rough terrain. The Cisco TelePresence systems connect via X band satellite, an industry first in the use of telepresence technology.
TelePresence System 500 utilizes less power and bandwidth, and, therefore, can be moved to locations such as sites in Afghanistan where there is little power.
“Thanks to this system, we now have companies that now have robust capabilities in their command posts,” said Terry Morgan, director of Cisco’s netcentric operations. “In this battle of varied information, they need to go all the way back through the chain of command and have high-definition telecommunications. Now we are working on how we can move it forward and do things like make it deployable.”
Given the fact that the TelePresence System 500 utilizes a liquid crystal display as opposed to plasma screens used in other systems, the model can be shipped laying down. This means it can be packaged and shipped in a standard military-sized container. “It also allows us to create feeders that can be deployed with satellite connectivity,” Morgan said.
Distinguishing Cisco’s TelePresence video conferencing systems, company officials say, are their lifelike “in person” experience. By combining light, video, and powerful encryption and compression algorithms, Cisco has been able to develop a system that keeps lighting, voice and audio together. Consequently, its TelePresence systems help improve longdistance communication that can be derived from visual cues of face-to-face contact. “Maneuvering that type of technology and understanding the capabilities of the network have allowed us to take that kit and package it in ever-decreasing sizes and amounts of bandwidth so that we can provide a very close approximation of the high end capability,” said Morgan.
Cisco TelePresence 500 endpoint models, in particular, are supported as the remote endpoint on the far end of a satellite link. The next step, Morgan revealed, is to make the 500 system compatible with classic video teleconferencing.
“It is important to share knowledge further and further down the chain of command and do it in the way human networks work,” Morgan emphasized. By being able to integrate lesser bandwidth capabilities with high-end systems, Morgan contended that systems will be able to more readily and rapidly share both the auditory and visual world. This is particularly important for telemedical applications, especially for wounded troops on the battlefield.
ON THE MOVE
Other advancements in video conferencing that have significant military applications are also under way.
In August, iDirect Government Technologies (iGT), a wholly owned subsidiary of VT iDirect, announced official test results from the Joint User Interoperability Communications Exercise, or JUICE, conducted in June at Fort Monmouth, N.J., and across multiple U.S. military locations around the world. During that event, iGT demonstrated the capabilities of several military-grade satellite communications technologies including iDirect’s ruggedized 12200 Series Universal Industrial 4-Slot Satellite Hub, iConnex e850mp compact satellite router board, and Global Network Management System.
The successful test results included the enabling of video teleconferencing in ground vehicles at 65 mph. Here an iGT communications- on-the-move vehicle maintained a live video teleconference with Fort Monmouth and a joint task force forward operating base. The iDirect network sustained connectivity throughout a 15-mile, 35-minute test route. The test showcased how soldiers in the field can reliably implement voice, video and data applications in moving ground vehicles.
In addition, Tandberg has manufactured several products for military use. Among them is the Tactical MXP, a rugged and portable video conferencing system. The system can be used with a satellite feed over a satellite network, and so can be taken to remote areas around the world where there may not be network capabilities.
At 40 pounds, the Tactical MXP is portable and built of rugged materials. Its features include a built-in camera and 17-inch screen. Its design is spacious enough to accommodate a laptop. The system is currently being used in the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, from where information can be relayed with full video capabilities. ♦