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The Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) is a mission-focused network of connected devices, sensors, computing systems, and people that collect and exchange information in battlefield settings. Some of those systems can also analyze information or act on it. IoBT applies Internet of Things ideas to military operations, where equipment and communications must cope with changing missions, limited resources, and adversarial conditions.
What does IoBT include?
“Things” in IoBT can range from soldier-worn and environmental sensors to radios, weapons, cameras, unmanned aircraft, ground systems, and other connected objects. Together with computing systems and human warfighters, they can sense conditions, communicate, process information, and, in some cases, act or collaborate.
The term describes a concept and research area, not one standardized product or a single universally deployed network. The U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Collaborative Research Alliance (CRA), for example, frames IoBT around research objectives rather than a product specification: ARL’s IoBT CRA overview.
How is battlefield IoT different from ordinary IoT?
Both connect devices to gather and exchange information. IoBT is distinguished by its military mission and operating conditions: the network must serve tactical needs even as terrain, infrastructure, available devices, and adversary activity change. Devices may have different capabilities and limited resources, while communications may be disrupted or contested.
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- Mission-driven: sensing and information exchange are intended to support military operations and decision-making, rather than general consumer convenience.
- Heterogeneous: the network may combine devices with widely different functions and computing or communication capabilities.
- Operating under pressure: changing missions and adversarial influence make adaptability, resilience, and risk management central design concerns.
A foundational paper by Alexander Kott, Ananthram Swami, and Bruce J. West describes a future battlefield populated by entities with varied levels of intelligence, performing tasks such as sensing, communicating, acting, and collaborating with people. It emphasizes communications that can adapt to changing situations and missions: the authors’ paper on the Internet of Battlefield Things.
What is IoBT intended to do?
IoBT research aims to make useful information available nearer to where it is needed and to support tactical autonomy and decision-making. The Army’s 2017 announcement described its CRA objective as developing pervasive, heterogeneous sensing and actuation to enhance Soldier and mission-command autonomy and information analysis against adversarial influence. That is a stated research objective, not evidence that every capability is deployed or proven in operations: U.S. Army announcement, October 10, 2017.
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Research directions include discovering and combining devices and information, adapting systems as needs change, autonomous actuation, and distributed processing and analytics. IoBT REIGN also identifies goals such as trust, self-awareness, learning, situation understanding, efficiency at the network edge, resilience, and AI at the point of need: ARL’s IoBT REIGN overview. These are research aims, not guarantees about the current reliability or availability of fielded systems.
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Why is IoBT difficult to build and operate?
A battlefield network has to coordinate diverse devices without assuming stable infrastructure, abundant computing power, or uninterrupted communications. It must also account for the possibility that information systems themselves may be targets or may be influenced by an adversary.
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- Scale and variety: many kinds of devices must exchange useful information despite differing capabilities.
- Changing conditions: missions and operating environments can shift, so network configurations and information flows may need to adapt.
- Resource constraints: devices and links may have limited capacity, making efficient sensing, communication, and processing important.
- Contested information: disruption or adversarial influence can undermine communications and the value of information, making resilience and risk mitigation important.
For a deeper treatment of the field, Wiley lists Maggie Wigness and Tarek Abdelzaher’s chapter “Internet of Battlefield Things: Challenges, Opportunities, and Emerging Directions” in IoT for Defense and National Security, first published December 28, 2022: chapter information from Wiley.
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