NATO honors international team around FKIE scientists for pioneering research for the battlefield of the future

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The award ceremony took place in mid-October in Lillehammer, Norway, as part of the NATO IST Panel Business Meeting. Pictured right: Prof. Dr. Marc Adrat, who has chaired the Research Task Group since its launch in 2019. | Copyright: NATO STO IST Panel | Download

Hinweis zur Verwendung von Bildmaterial: Die Verwendung des Bildmaterials zur Pressemitteilung ist bei Nennung der Quelle vergütungsfrei gestattet. Das Bildmaterial darf nur in Zusammenhang mit dem Inhalt dieser Pressemitteilung verwendet werden. Falls Sie das Bild in höherer Auflösung benötigen oder Rückfragen zur Weiterverwendung haben, wenden Sie sich bitte direkt an die Pressestelle, die es veröffentlicht hat.

Awarded the “NATO Information Systems Technology (IST) Panel Team Excellence Award” (from left to right): the FKIE team of scientists Prof. Dr. Marc Adrat (Chair), Dr. Markus Antweiler (Mentor) and Matthias Tschauner (Scientist). | Copyright: Fraunhofer FKIE | Download

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“The core advantage of 'in-band full-duplex' technology is that two functions - transmitting and receiving - can be carried out simultaneously on the same frequency,” says Group Chairman Adrat, explaining the innovation of the new method. “Previously, both functions had to be performed either alternately one after the other or on different frequencies.” The new approach makes it possible to solve the problem of signal superpositions, known as self-interferences, and thanks to the simultaneous use of both functions, spectral efficiency and therefore data throughput can be doubled. As a concrete advantage in operations, this brings a clear optimization of military radio traffic and thus significantly improved and more reliable operational conditions for the soldiers.

Technological optimization of communication and electronic warfare capabilities

The technology also contributes to the latter in the detection and defense of drone signals. As the war in Ukraine has shown for over a thousand days now, drones are the decisive means of reconnaissance and effectiveness on the modern battlefield. The early and reliable detection and defense of drone signals is therefore an important instrument for maintaining tactical superiority. The new “in-band full-duplex” method can support this by enabling the real simultaneous sensing (detection) and jamming (jamming) of drone signals for the first time. Until now, it has been necessary to schedule look-through pauses to monitor the success of jamming.

Successor research group continues work

The NATO research task group ended its regular work in November 2023, but the important research strand is already being continued: The new Group “Cosite-Interference Cancellation for Military Systems and Defense Applications” (IST-222-RTG) has already taken over, with Adrat, Antweiler and Tschauner once again participating as chair, mentor and scientist. The new research task is to extend the results previously achieved for a single radio device to several collocated radio devices (Cosite interference). The fact that the research group has grown from eight to ten participating nations confirms the great interest in the topic.

Wissenschaftlicher Ansprechpartner:
Prof. Dr. Marc Adrat
Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics FKIE
Department Communication Systems
Phone: +49 (0)228 9435-807
Mail: marc.adrat@fkie.fraunhofer.de

Originalpublikation:
https://www.fkie.fraunhofer.de/en/press-releases/nato-ist-panel-excellence-award-2024.html