The system that can travel through water is known as ELF.
Operates at the 3-300
hertz range. In our terms that's one typed character every 5 minutes. It's ONLY use
is as described, a "doorbell" as we used to call it. It's broadcast from a station in
the upper Midwest and actually transmitted through the earth. It can not be
transmitted from a ship or aircraft due to the power requirements and size of
antenna.
ELF Transmitter in Clam Lake Wisconsin.
Submarines can receive normal radio signals while submerged via either a
deployable radio mast or periscope, a floating wire antenna, or on some ships a
bouy antenna system.
Submarines can also transmit while submerged via a bouy system. This allows the
submarine to "clear datum" from the transmission source.
Fast attack submarines check for traffic at routine intervals, SSBN's stay in
continuous radio contact.
Radio can travel through water, but the preferred mode of communication is via
underwater telephone. The system uses single sideband acoustic transmissions
and each participant in the conversation can use what's known as a "gertrude
check" to determine range to one another.
Submarine Communications
Submarines communicate via multiple, complementary RF systems, covering
nearly all the military communications frequencies. No one communications
system or frequency band can support all submarine communications
requirements. Submarine shipboard communications systems consist of RF
antennas and radio room equipment, both RF transmitters/receivers and baseband
suites. Submarines require a suite of antennas to provide the necessary
communications, navigation, and Identification, Friend or Foe (IFF) capabilities.
Submarine antennas, as compared to surface ship antennas, are unique in design,
shape, materials, and performance due to a submarine's space and weight
limitations, extreme environmental conditions, and stealth considerations. UHF
SATCOM provides a relatively high data rate but requires the submarine to
expose a detectable mast-mounted antenna, degrading its primary attribute stealth. Conversely, extremely low frequency (ELF) and VLF broadcast
communications provide submarines a high degree of stealth and flexibility in
speed and depth, but are low data rate, submarine-unique and shore-to-submarine
only.
The US Navy is investing in new and previously demonstrated techniques for
communicating with submarines at speed and depth for coordinated ASW
operations. These techniques most commonly use either trailing wires or towed
buoys for submarine communications, which impose limitations on the
submarine's maneuverability and stealth, and therefore negatively impact the
submarine's ability to fully conduct ASW operations. An airborne laser which
could penetrate shallow water would permit submarine communications without
the restrictions of floating wires or buoys.
ELF [Extremely Low Frequency 30 Hz - 300 Hz 10,000 Km - 1,000 Km
wavelength] - This is the only band that can penetrate hundreds of meters below
the surface of the ocean. The US Navy transmits ELF messages using a huge
antenna in Wisconsin and Michigan created by several miles of cable on towers in
conjunction with the underlying bedrock. This band is used to send short coded
"phonetic letter spelled out" (PLSO) messages to deeply submerged submarines
that are trailing long antenna wires. The communication is only one way, therefore
it is used primarily for prearranged signals or to direct the submarine to come
closer to the surface for faster communications. Environmental factors do not
have a strong influence on changing the signal and therefore it is quite reliable.
For more information (not required) try this link
[Link]
VLF [Very low frequency 3 kHz - 30 kHz 100 Km - 10 Km ] This band can
penetrate several meters below seawater and can transmit much more information
than ELF, therefore it is useful for submarine communications when the
submarine cannot surface, but can come close to the surface. It can be affected by
salinity gradients in the ocean, but these usually do not present problems for nearsurface submarines. There are natural sources of VLF radiation, but in general,
like ELF, it is not strongly influenced by changes in environmental conditions
therefore it is useful for reliable global communications. The transmission
antennas need to be large, therefore it is primarily used for one-way
communications from shore-based command centers to surface ships and
submarines. It can also be used to broadcast to several satellites at once, which
can in turn relay messages to the surface. The Navy's VLF systems serve as a
back-up for global communication use during hostilities when nuclear explosions
may disrupt higher frequencies or satellites are destroyed by enemy actions. VLF
is also used for aircraft and vessel navigation beacons and for transmitting
standard frequencies and time signals.
HF [High frequency 3 MHz - 30 MHz 100 m - 10 m ] - The Navy makes
extensive use of this band for communications. It is also used for long range
("over-the-horizon") radar. Due to the skywave transmission mode, HF radiation
can travel great distances, sometimes to the other side of the earth. Due to its
versatility and large coverage area, this is a very crowded band and the military
can only use a few frequency regions scattered throughout this band. The most
efficient transmissions require fairly large antennas, therefore it is most useful
when at least one of the stations is on shore. The antenna size limits its use on
aircraft. It cannot be used for satellite communications since it is reflected by the
ionosphere. Many of the former uses of HF by the Navy are now being taken over
by satellite communication systems. However, we expect that the Navy will
continue to use HF for quite some time in the future. The primary drawback to HF
use is that it is highly susceptible to changes in the ionosphere and therefore
several frequencies must be available for use.
One of the immediate tasks delineated by the Navy in "From the Sea" is to
continue the full integration of SSNs into expeditionary task forces. To be
effective units of a Naval Task Group within a joint, Tailored Forward Element
(TFE), submarines must be fully interoperable with both Naval and Joint
communication systems. Submarines must be capable of tailoring on-board
capabilities to optimize their support for the Joint Task Force (JTF) and Naval
Component Commanders.
Coordination between multiple assets such as aircraft, surface ships, and
submarines is critical to an effective ASW campaign. Integration of submarines
into an overall ASW effort, arguably the most effective platform for wide area
search and tracking, has traditionally been hampered by lack of or minimal
communications to the submarine while deep.
Submarine communications were once limited to those necessary to communicate
mission support information and the minimal command and control that a
submarine previously required. The Navy continues to implement the principles of
Network Centric Warfare, where the capability of the total force is made greater
than the contributions of individual platforms through networking of sensors,
weapons control systems, and information systems.
As submarines continue to conduct a variety of missions to include intelligence
collection, Indications and Warning (I & W), anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface
warfare, strike warfare, and mine warfare, they will have to be an integral part of
networked sensors and platforms.
Submarines' future missions will require a revolution in communications
connectivity and supporting bandwidth. The vision is to allow submarines to
communicate without the current restrictions of depth and speed and with
sufficient bandwidth to maximize the effectiveness of data and intelligence
collected by the submarine, such that real-time connectivity and reach-back is
achieved.
The development of these advanced communications has already begun with the
incorporation of Narrowband based systems that are IP architecture based.
Following this is development of a higher data rate antenna and wideband based
communications and ultimately a buoyant cable antenna that allows two-way
communications at depth and speed.
Ultimately submerged data exchange and communications capabilities will be a
key enabler for employing off-board vehicles, sensors, and distributed networks of
UUVs, sensors and other payloads.
Deep secret secure submarine communication on a quantum level
Quantum key distribution technology could enable submarines to
communicate securely both at depth and speed. Berenice Baker investigates
how rapid underwater communication can be achieved at a level of secrecy
protected by the very laws of physics themselves.
Submarine communication challenges
Submarine communication is restricted by the depth at which vessels can
exchange information and the speed at which they can do so through the
medium of water.
Recently however, researchers have made impressive strides in solving this
dilemma using a technique called Quantum Key Distribution (QKD).
QKD promises to guarantee secure communication through the principles of
quantum mechanics, without sacrificing speed or forcing the submarine to rise
nearer the surface.
"Submarine communication is restricted by the depth at which vessels can
exchange information."
For a submarine to retain all its tactical advantage, it must remain submerged
in the mixed layer, which is around 60 to 100 metres deep, below which
surface sonars cannot detect them. Submarine communications are currently
carried out while submerged using ELF or VLF radio waves because only very
low or extremely low frequencies can penetrate the water at those depths.
Using ELF and VLF presents a number of disadvantages, however. The
transmission sites have to be very large, meaning the submarine must tow
cumbersome antenna cables, plus it usually has to align on a specific
orientation and reduce speed to obtain optimal reception.
The VLF and ELF frequencies only offer a very low bandwidth: VLF supports
a few hundred bits a second while ELF sustains just a few bits each minute.
This prevents the transmission of complex data such as video.
One potential solution is to carry out optical communications using a laser, a
concept which has been around since the 1980s when experiments were
carried out to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain an optical channel
between a submarine and an airborne platform.
The Quantum Technologies group at defence technology specialist ITT Exelis
is looking at taking this a step further through research into the feasibility of
laser optical communication between a submarine and a satellite or an
airborne platform, secured by using quantum information.
The work ITT Exelis carries out for the US Government includes research in a
wide variety of quantum information topics, including the development of
quantum algorithms, quantum sensors and novel solutions for quantum
communication systems.
Perfectly secure keys
Dr. Marco Lanzagorta, the director of the Quantum Technologies group in the
Information Systems department of ITT Exelis, explains that QKD is a
protocol which uses quantum information to generate a pair of perfectly secure
keys.
"Quantum information is different from classical information, because in
classical information the unit is the bit and it can have the value of zero or
one," said Lanzagorta. "The unit of quantum information is the qubit, which is
a quantum state of a photon. It can be on zero, one or any superposition of
zero and one. It's more of a concept of information than the classical one."
Ohio Class submarines serve the United States Navy as virtually undetectable
undersea launch platforms of intercontinental missiles
Quantum information has two important properties for securing
communications. It cannot be copied which means it cannot be forged, and
every time a quantum state is measured by an observer it gets collapsed, which
means its properties are very difficult to detect.
"QKD promises to guarantee secure communication through the principles of
quantum mechanics, without sacrificing speed."
Combined in QKD, these properties can be used to generate perfectly secure
keys because the secrecy of the keys is guaranteed by the laws of physics.
Lanzagorta explains that in traditional cryptosystems - such as the public
domain system RSA, Diffie-Hellman and ElGamal encryption methods - the
security is based on the solution to a very hard mathematical problem.
However, there is no formal proof that this mathematical problem, for
example prime factorisation in the case of RSA, could not be broken by an
advanced algorithm.
It has also been conjectured that hypothetical quantum computers could break
these types of ciphers exponentially faster. Hence QKD would offer an
unbeatably secure solution.
Optical communication
The technology for QKD already exists and is commercially available but it is
currently carried out through an optical fibre, rather than photons travelling
freely through air or water.
"Some experiments have been done on QKD using photons moving in free
space," said Lanzagorta. "Most recently an experiment was done in the Canary
Islands where they did first base QKD at a distance of 144km, showing it is
feasible to have this free space quantum communication.
"Combined in QKD, these properties can be used to generate perfectly secure
keys because the secrecy of the keys is guaranteed."
"Other work has been done on connecting a ground site with a satellite
platform, but we're working not on a ground platform but on one that is
submerged in the water."
In addition to the challenges of transmitting photons through water and free
air, the researchers need to establish a laser link between the transmitter and a
receiver on a satellite or airborne platform.
This is currently being tackled by a QinetiQ North America team which is
developing a specialist tracking system.
Once the optical link between the submarine and the satellite is established,
the ITT Exelis researchers' work takes over, investigating how to enable the
QKD protocol to secure communications. This is done using a photosensor
working in what is known as the Geiger mode, which effectively means it
counts photons which arrive in a certain polarisation.
"For the transmission of quantum information, you need something that will
polarise the photons, so the quantum state will be in a given basis, and to have
a filter that detects this in the transmitter and receiver," said Lanzagorta.
"You cannot use regular lasers as you need specialist photon lasers, which is
like a very diluted laser. These send one photon at a time and each photon has
a well-determined quantum state."
Feasibility studies
The next stage for the programme will see the US Naval Research Lab carry
out a series of experiments to establish how well a photon's quantum state is
preserved as it travels through water to verify the accuracy of ITT Exelis'
theoretical feasibility study.
If the experiments support the theoretical model and the research moves on to
the next stage, an experimental prototype could be in place within five years.
However, a number of factors are at play with such a radical new approach.
"It's not only a scientific technological question but also has to do with
funding levels and politics," claimed Lanzagorta.
The Royal Navy's Astute Class submarine is a nuclear-powered attack
submarine
However, if the powers that be do see it through, the benefits could be
substantial. The proposed system could potentially deliver perfectly secure
transmission, the highest level of security available, at rates of up to 170kb a
second, which is around 600 times more bandwidth than current VLF systems
are capable of, easily coping with complex data such as video.
Additionally, there would be no loss of operational efficiency or stealth for the
submarine itself, as in principle it would not have to slow down, remain at
depths of less than 100m or change orientation to exchange data.
These factors would be addressed by the transmitting laser and receiving
system part of the solution, which is being tackled by QinetiQ.
However, the entire success depends on how travelling through water affects
the photon. "The biggest challenge is to see what is the best way to send the
single photon pulses in such a way that the quantum state is protected even if
it travels through water," said Lanzagorta. "We need to find a way to do some
sort of encoding, like error correction encoding, that protects the quantum
state of the photon so we can have a larger range of operations."
