Smart materials for military applications

1. EICC- P161 1
Smart Materials for Military Application
Smart Materials for Military Applications
Anupam Tiwari
IETE –N Delhi
anupamtiwari1972@rediffmail.com
Abstract—“Smart Materials” means incorporating
intelligence into materials, so that they behave intelligently
desired. There are various technologies which are building block
of smart and intelligent systems. Nanotechnology (NT), Artificial
Neural Networks (ANNs), soft computing and Artificial
Intelligence (AI) are components of smart materials.
Smart materials have many military applications, like
they enhance existing war machines capabilities and
miniaturization of aircraft [1]. Smart combat suit, smart cloths
and smart sensors are also few examples which have military
applications. In Net-centric warfare scenario “Smart Dust”
(Mote) can be used as distributed wireless sensors. Motes as an
important element of sensor network are discussed in this paper. Figure 1: Smart Combat Suit
Canopy shield of fighter aircraft can be improved by
Nanotechnology, which can shield EM Waves. Modernization of
survival pack with smart enable items is also suggested. With the advancement of nanotechnology, chemically-
protective combat suit can be fabricated which shield soldiers
against hazardous chemicals and deadly micro-organisms.
Keywords- NT, ANN, CNT, MAV, Dust Mote and AI “Electronic nose” consist of ANNs (Artificial Neural
Networks), trained by different chemical agents can detect
Smart materials are materials having intrinsic and fumes of chemical weapons and warn soldiers about chemical
extrinsic capabilities. They first respond to stimuli and attack and take suitable precautions.
environmental changes and secondly activate their functions
according to these changes. The stimuli could originate II. SMART INSECT (MICRO AIR VEHICLES)
internally or externally.
Smart materials have more properties that can be Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) is a small air vehicle [3] as
significantly changed by external stimuli such as stress, shown in Figure-3, can be used for intelligence gathering. An
temperature pH, electric or magnetic fields. Few examples of MAV has generally been defined as having a span of less than
smart materials like, Shape memory alloys, Piezoelectric 6 inches, and a mass of less than 100 grams. They are so small
materials, Electro-rheostatic materials, Magneto- in length and penetrate anywhere without detection. MAVs
rheostatic materials, Smart Gels, Sensitive can be deployed at combat zone to monitor troop’s movement,
polymers (temperature-responsive polymer), Micro air NBC threats and battle damage assessment.
vehicles (MAVs) and Smart Dust. Nano Air Vehicles (NAVs) aims at an extremely small
(less than 7.5 cm wing span); ultra-lightweight (less than 10
I. S MART COMBAT SUIT
grams) air vehicle system, designed for indoor, outdoor urban
A. Body Armor and military missions. NAVs/ MAVs are impossible to spot
due to their small size, which makes them perfect for military
NT enhances capability of combat suit. Carbon Nano applications.
Tube (CNT) has very high tensile strength (11000-63000 M
Pa) as compared to steel which has only 860 M Pa. It is light
and strong so it’s ideal for body armor.
B. Nuclear Biological and Chemical (NBC) detector
NBC threat can be monitor by NT enable sensors, they
change colour indications, and detect NBC threat. Wearable
electronics fitted on combat suit can communicate with Net-
centric communication room. Troops get updates from PDA
(Personal Digital Assistant) or wearable computers for better Figure 3: MAV/NAV
situational awareness and react as per war scenario.
“National Conference on Emerging Trends in Intelligent Computing and Communication (EICC-2012)”, on April
13-14, 2012 at Galgotias College of Engineering & Technology, Greater Noida, U. P.

2. EICC- P161 2
Smart Materials for Military Application
III. SMART CLOTHS environment, which can be used in a various applications.
Main purpose is to collect and relay information (up to 1 Km)
“Smart cloths” are combination of mobile where base station is installed. Dust motes use wireless
multimedia, wireless communication and wearable computing communication to relay information to a base station over
[4]. They offer potential to make personal computers even distances of 10 m to1000 m.
more personal. Soldiers can wear a T-shirt (Figure-4) made of
special tactile material which can detect variety of signals A dust mote is an autonomous node incorporating sensor,
from the human body, such as detection wounds. The T-shirt computing, communications and power source in an mm3
volume. Basic mote consists of a microcontroller with sensors
functions like a computer, with optical and conductive fibres
and communication unit. The communication unit consists of
integrated into the garment. It can monitor the vital signs such RF transceiver, a laser module, and a corner cube
as heart rate and breathing of the wearers like security and reflector. Devices can have sensors to monitor temperature,
military personnel [5]. It can then generate signal which light, humidity, pressure, 3 axis magnetometers, and 3 axis
indicates nature of injury, analyze their extent, decide on the accelerometers.
urgency to react, and even takes some action to stabilize the
injury. A collection of dust motes are dispersed in area to
monitor.
Figure 2: Mote
Motes create a wireless network. They are dispersed by
UAV across a battle space, like (food packets) yielding real-
time information about enemy or troops movements, remote
metrological observations and tactical environment [6], [7].
They use wireless peer-to-peer communication to form a self-
organized network. Multi-hop routing algorithms based on
dynamic network and resource discovery protocol is used for
communicating from remote mote to base station. Motes have
less computational ability so they use symmetric cryptography
for secure communication. Steps for secure key loading are as
follows:-
Figure 4: Smart T-Shirt
 Initial loading of keys in all motes before
deployment.
 Each node bootstraps itself by broadcasting an initial
IV. S MART DUST (MOTE) key in the clear.
 Nodes then exchange keys and build up trust
It is a nano-structured silicon senor which can structures as they do network and resource discovery.
spontaneously assemble, orient sense and report on their local Table-1, summarise protocols, OS, hardware and
management protocols in typical mote communication [8].
“National Conference on Emerging Trends in Intelligent Computing and Communication (EICC-2012)”, on April
13-14, 2012 at Galgotias College of Engineering & Technology, Greater Noida, U. P.

3. EICC- P161 3
Smart Materials for Military Application
TABLE-1 PROTOCOLS, MANAGEMENT , HARDWARE AND
SOFTWARE OF MOTE COMMUNICATION.
Error code correction Reed-Solomon ECC is one of the
best.
Reliable Datagram It allows base stations to
Figure 5
Protocol (RDP) communicate with motes reliably.
Security(cryptography) Symmetrical keys. Figure-5 shows sensor networks layers. Physical, data link,
Operating System(OS) Tiny OS in this processor, which network, transport and application layer stack with power, task and
has 3500 bytes OS code space and mobility management planes. Management planes is implemented
with software and hardware.
4500 bytes available code space.
Mobility support to Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP)
Motes protocol allows motes to register with any V. SMART MATERIALS AIR FORCE APPLICATION
base station in the world.
Typical Hardware of 8535 micro-controller with 8 KB A. Shielding of EM Wave
mote instruction flash memory, 512 bytes
RAM and 512 bytes EEPROM. Electromagnetic (EM) discharge shielding is required in
Processor, 3 KB RAM One week the cockpit of fighter plane for avoiding interference with
fully active, 2 year @1 % duty electronic systems and also adverse effect on health of pilot.
cycle and power source. Carbon Nano Tube (CNT) coating on cockpit cover is good
for EM shielding and electrostatic discharge.
Power management plane This plane manages power
management of sensor node. The
sensor node may turn off its B. Servival Kit
receiver after receiving a message
from one of its neighbours. It Survival kit is an essential part of ejection seat in fighter
avoids duplicated messages. Also, plane. It carries essential items for survival of a pilot in
when low power level then the military aircraft in case of ejection. It contains items like
sensor node broadcasts to its (knife, water purifier tablets, high calories food, and pistol).
neighbours that it is low in power & It is proposed to modernize the contents of kit with
can’t participate in routing following:-,
messages. Remaining power is
reserved for sensing, Figure -5.  Nano enabled high calories eatables, Nano bandage,
Nano medicine (nano-bio fusion), Nano water
Mobility management This plane detects and registers the purifier, and nano-sensor (as RFID tag) war tag
Plane movement of sensor nodes, so a which will carry his service number and religion.
route back to the user is always  PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) which will
maintained, and the sensor nodes communicate with Net centric warfare control room.
can keep track of who are their  Pistol, knife and high quality touch with NT enable
neighbour sensor nodes. By light weight battery.
knowing who the neighbour sensor
nodes are, the sensor nodes can
balance their power and task usage
(Figure -5). VI. HEALTH AND ENVIORNMENTAL ISSUES
Task management plane This plane balances and schedules NT and Smart materials, health hazards and
the sensing tasks given to a specific environmental issues still need research. These materials are
region, Figure -5. non disposable, so it also adversely effects environment.
Pollution issues, ingress of these materials inside human
Application layer Sensor management protocol body via mouth or skin. Disposal and health hazards of these
protocol (SMP), task assignment and data smart materials need extensive studies.
advertisement protocol (TADAP),
and sensor query and data
dissemination protocol (SQDDP)
“National Conference on Emerging Trends in Intelligent Computing and Communication (EICC-2012)”, on April
13-14, 2012 at Galgotias College of Engineering & Technology, Greater Noida, U. P.

4. EICC- P161 4
Smart Materials for Military Application
[2] Joel M. Grasmeyer and Matthew T. Keennon, Development
of the Black Widow Micro Air Vehicle. American Institute of
VII. CONCLUSION Aeronautics and Astronautics
[3] McMichael, J.M., and Francis, M.S., Micro Air Vehicles –
In the paper applications of smart materials in Toward a New Dimension in Flight, DARPA, USA, 1997.
military field are discussed. Smart materials are intelligent. [4] Steve Mann, communications of the ACM., August
NT, AI and soft computing are most important components of 1996/Vol. 39, No. 8.
“Smart materials”.
MAVs/NAVs will be use as sensors for warfare. [5] 0. Sahin, 0. Kayacan, E. Yazgan Bulgun , Smart Textiles
for Soldier of the Future Defence Science Journal, Vol. 55, No. 2,
Smart combat suits and smart cloths enhance solider April 2005, pp. 195-205 O 2005, DESIDOC
capabilities and improve situational awareness. “Motes” are
smart sensors which can be used as wireless distributed [6] Brett Warneke, Sunil Bhave, Smart Dust Mote Core
sensors network for military communication. Architecture
Smart materials are designed to reduce weight,
eliminate sound, reflect more light, strength and handle more [7] Ross Anderson, Haowen Chan and Adrian Perrig, Key
heat. Smart structures and systems enhance quality of life of a Infection: Smart Trust for Smart Dust. CS252, Spring 2000: Project
soldier. Report Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, 497 Cory Hall,
In future, development of the high- tech textiles, Berkeley CA 94720.
battle uniform can be hardened into an instant shield with the [8] I.F. Akyildiz, W. Su, Y. Sankarasubramaniam, and E.
push of a button. There can be chameleon-like battle suits that Cayirc, Wireless sensor networks: a survey, Computer Networks 38
can change their colour depending on the surroundings and (2002) 393–422.
camouflage. If a combat soldier is hit in the leg, sensors relay
information about his injury and location to the field
headquarters. Sensors inform the field headquarters about the IX. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
soldier who is the closest to the wounded soldier; new orders
and the target's position appear on the rescuer's head-up
display for better situational awareness.
MAVs/ NAVs will be extensive sensors in war
scenario for unmanned and undetected missions. Smart Dust
as an autonomous sensor will be the important of wireless
distributed network.
Deployment of motes, communication security, protocols
and management of motes are open research areas. Extensive
R&D is required to study the side effect of Smart Materials
and NT products. Anupam Tiwari is Member of IETE New Delhi. He has
received B.E (Electrical), M Sc (Disaster Mitigation), IETE (E&TC)
and M.Tech (Modeling & Simulation) in Applied Mathematics from
DIAT – DU Pune. His main interest includes Mathematical Modeling
and simulation, Fractals, Radar and Communication, Antenna and
Networks.
VIII. REFERENCE
[1] Georges Akhras, Canadian Military Journal, page 25-31 G
Autumn 2000
“National Conference on Emerging Trends in Intelligent Computing and Communication (EICC-2012)”, on April
13-14, 2012 at Galgotias College of Engineering & Technology, Greater Noida, U. P.