RFID in Netcentric Warfare Logistics

The emergence of Net Centric Warfare (NCW) in the modern day conflicts has impacted the way the combat forces are logistically supported with increasing dependence on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to provide real time monitoring and control of all assets. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which relies on GIS, has acted as a force multiplier for the supply chain management in the defence forces by providing hitherto untapped benefits in asset visibility and its management. The  ability to identify, locate and record the  movement  of an asset, be it troops or stores/ ammunition, through its entire life-cycle, without necessarily needing manual intervention is a crucial element of logistics transformation. RFID provides unprecedented opportunity for the safety, precise deployment and tracking of all military assets. Existing Automatic Identification Technologies (AITs) like barcoding, can identify an object, but  cannot track the real-time movement as seamlessly as RFID.

One of RFID's first uses was, in fact, to identify friendly aircraft during World War II. The system was part of a programme called 'Identify: Friend or Foe' (IFF), which is heavily utilised in military, private and commercial aviation traffic control. Today, RFID is just beginning to form substantial roots in the worldwide military supply chain though its use in defence still represents a miniscule percentage of public and business RFID usage.

RFID technology can track and record the location, time of entry and exit from a designated operational / administrative area, besides the condition/ status of troops and stores,by relying on radio frequency communication between the tag and reader in order to make identification and to carry out the tracking function. To enable this,,a RFID card or tag is placed on the military store and when it enters or leaves the RF field produced by the reader, the data stored in the integrated chip of the tag is read and recorded by the reader. The reader then passes the information to a computer or local application using the GIS, thus forming an integrated network/ mesh of all linked databases, thereby integrating all stakeholders in the supply chain.RFID requires neither contact with a reader nor direct line of sight, assay in the case of barcode technology. RFID, therefore, reduces the problems associated with such ‘line-of-sight' technologies thus enabling the RFID to operate in harsh military operating conditions.

Tags are especially valuable in military applications, as they can be read through a variety of environmental conditions such as rain, snow, fog, ice, paint, dirt/ grime, and other visually and environmentally challenging conditions where barcodes or other optically read technologies would be useless. RFID tags can also be read at very high speeds, often responding in less than 100 milliseconds thus not hampering the operations where speed is of essence. Tags can either be read-only, read-write or a combination thereof. The read-write capability of an active RFID system is also a significant advantage in interactive applications such as recording the historical activities of any given item or personnel. Tags that are 'writeable' can contain intelligence to record environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity of transport, shock and vibration, and even record if items have come into contact with pollutants, say in a NBC environment,  or if packing cases have been opened. RFID provides data of any given item, rendering a safer and more accurate supply chain, thus assuring greater mission reliability as real time information is provided to the decision makers.

Another criticality in any battlefield is the management of battle casualties due to enemy action and the speed and correctness of their treatment. Classifying injured soldiers based on the medical care required and then treating them as quickly as possible is crucial for the morale of the troops. In the battlefield, RFID chips can be embedded in wristbands to track the identification, status and location of injured soldiers being brought for treatment. RFID tags can store a soldier’s medical records, allowing doctors to instantly view triage records enabling assignment of precedence based on the criticality.

In civil end use, RFID tracks inventory/ goods both as a matter of cost reduction in the supply chain and to assure civilian availability. The military too has similar goals but the stakes are higher and the environment more critical. Assuring that the right type and amount of supplies gets to the right locations at the right time is essential for standard supplies like food and medicine as well as military equipment. Assuring the absolute safety of those military stores is likewise critical to success. As per estimates, had  RFID  been used during Operation Desert Storm, the  US Army would have saved over USD 2 billion by avoiding duplicate shipments and preventing lost shipments through appropriate equipment tracking.

The main challenge in implementing RIFD in the defence applications is the lack of standardisation. RFID presents innumerable integration challenges, particularly in military deployments where often there is much less control than in the civilian world, and where lives, and not just money is at stake.The vendors/ suppliers of military equipment,utilise their own proprietary technologies on a standalone basis. Given that, RFID is very integration-intensive, often requiring the synchronisation between up to a dozen different products and integration points, such standalone systems provide short term solutions only. However,several commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products are now homing in on RFID by merging the benefits of tag types, GPS and integration technology to better suit the unique needs of military commanders. The path to RFID is still not a smooth ride and this is particularly true when deploying into austere military environments in which speed and flexibility are critical success factors.Operating without consideration for a universal standards compliance and uniform data integration that takes into account  both commercial and military constructs may  provide short-term efficiency but with adverse  long-term costs.

The success of RFID in defence thus rests on a combination of factors, in which deep knowledge of military requirements, the functionality of COTS solutions and open standards have to be carefully considered. RFID, if implemented, offers the opportunity to control the supply chain from “ factory to foxhole”  to support today’s net-centric combat forces even in the face of rapidly changing battlefield milieu by exploiting technology to integrate widely dispersed human decision–makers.

With RFID, the adage “The Right Equipment at the Right Place at the Right Time”can become a reality.

*The author is a Senior Fellow at CLAWS

Views expressed are personal