Motivators driving Army research in wireless communications

Summary form only given. The presentation is intended to provide an appreciation of the motivators, direction, and some results of Army research in wireless communications. The paper begins with a brief overview of the history and programs of the US Army Research Office (ARO) and define wireless communications and related research interests from a military perspective. Next, the background and results of research in the areas of multifunction radio, antennas, and computational tools, including electromagnetic wave propagation modeling, are discussed. "Wish lists" for future research are presented for each area. Examples of current Army communications hardware are compared with commercial wireless hardware. Motivations for, and results from, current ARO-sponsored research programs in electromagnetics are given and discussed, and desirable directions for future research are outlined.