Man Portable Hand Held Wireless Network Survey Interrogation Tool (WiNSIT)

The ability to Find, Fix, and Finish enemy combatants is highly desirable to winning wars. The capability to positively identify High Value Targets / High Value Individuals is one method to insure success in any conflict, specifically counterinsurgency. Surgical precision in tracking known terrorists, and the ability to remove them from the battlefield allows for fast and decisive change within any conflict. To perform this complex mission, operators need to quickly identify the type of network to exploit. NuWaves’ innovative solutions will be applied to designing and developing a state-of-the–art multi-communications network exploitation tool that will allow U.S. Forces to quickly and accurately perform network surveys on all major communications infrastructures. This new system will combine a myriad of existing network survey tools into one condensed form factor. The system will also have the capability to save network survey information locally to be exported to common mapping formats. During the phase I effort, NuWaves will perform cost/benefit trade-off study of commercial wireless networking chipsets taking into account size, weight, power, and cost factors. Detailed circuit modeling, simulation, hardware prototyping, and performance characterization will be accomplished to validate the concept. BENEFITS: The enhanced survey tool will enable operators to quickly determine available communications architectures with precision. It will not only immediately benefit units combating the war on terror, but will also benefit other U.S. Government agencies that are in need of locating available telecommunication nodes. NuWaves’ innovative survey techniques have significant commercialization potential not only in Department of Defense operational and tactical missions but can be exploited throughout the entire Intelligence community including: CIA, FBI, and NSA.