Improvement of C4I safety by hardening

We report on high power microwave (HPM) vulnerability tests within a joint action of two NATO RTO Task Groups. The tests have been conducted on two generations of configurable military network communication systems. The systems based on state-of-the-art Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components have been adapted to the military environment with boxes, connectors, data cables and power supply hardened in various different ways. The investigation of susceptibility thresholds at Fraunhofer INT was done in its TEM waveguide which allows the generation of field strengths up to some kV/m, depending on measurement location. We find that only the exclusive use of good shielded SFTP cables in combination with state-of-the-art electrical equipment protection allows to avoid system failures due to HPM irradiation.