Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Wireless LAN links ammo outpost to base

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 12:23:01 -0500

Wireless LAN links ammo outpost to base
BY Dan Caterinicchia
April 2, 2003

FCW in the Middle East

"Flexibility valued in wartime IT" [FCW.com, March 26, 2003]

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait — Within the past week, Army logistics specialists have connected an
ammunition outpost more than two miles away via a secure, wireless local-area network that
enables basic Internet access and the automatic downloading of critical information back
to the base.

The Combat Service Support Automated Information System Interface (CAISI) is a wireless
LAN that provides "last-mile connectivity" between combat service support computers and
the base network.

Jose Ilarraza, a logistics management specialist here from the Combined Arms Support
Command, Fort Lee, Va., said the remote ammunition outpost had no communications
capabilities prior to the March 26 establishment of CAISI. The self-healing network uses
an 11-megabit "pipe" FTP for transferring data, and has omnidirectional antenna and
encryption at both ends.

"Because we're dealing with ammo, the importance of this information increases" up the
chain of command, Ilarraza said.

Staff Sgt. Daniel Peters, stock control noncommissioned officer in charge of the theater
storage area, said before the CAISI hook-up, his staff had to save the ammunition data on
a disk and then drive about 30 minutes to hand-deliver it to the required location on
base.

"The disk creates errors, but now we can do everything automatically" on the Standard Army
Ammunition System-Modernization (SAAS-Mod), Peters said. "It's like using the regular
Internet. And we can use the 'net' to look up more updated [ammunition] information,
because most of the books are outdated."

SAAS-Mod feeds the Integrated Logistics Analysis Program -- the data repository portion of
the Logistics Common Operating Picture -- that Army logisticians here have been developing
for the past few months, Ilarraza said.

The wireless LAN is also being used to transmit data collected by radio frequency
identification tags and scanners that are used to track the movement and location of
ammunition, Peters said.

CAISI uses mostly commercial off-the-shelf products housed in a rugged, military casing,
said Maj. Carter Corsello, support operations officer for the logistics automation office.
Among the vendors contributing to the CAISI program are Fortress Technologies with its
AirFortress wireless security suite, as well as overall information technology support
from Technical and Management Services Corp.

The wireless connectivity enables work to be done in minutes that normally takes hours to
complete, and if the ammunition outpost had to wait for the "wire dogs" to run fiber lines
out there, the rough terrain and constant splicing would quickly degrade the network,
Corsello said.

He added that the war effort has produced many unplanned problems that are empowering
innovative thinking and technological solutions, which would normally take much longer to
get approved. "We're doing things here we couldn't do normally because of the situation,"
Corsello said. "We just try not to take too much advantage."

The use of CAISI at the ammunition outpost is the second one in southwest Asia. The first
one, set up at another outpost located about four miles outside Camp Arifjan, was
completely unplanned. To install it, the automated logistics assistance team described the
set-up process to users on the other end via cellular phones, Corsello said.

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/middle_east/web-caisi-04-02-03.asp

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