S-FAN: Small Form-factor Automated Networking Navy SBIR FY2015.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2015.1 Topic No.: N151-015 Topic Title: S-FAN: Small Form-factor Automated Networking Proposal No.: N151-015-0312 Firm: Architecture Technology Corporation 9971 Valley View Road Eden Prairie, Minnesota 55344 Contact: Jordan Bonney Phone: (952) 829-5864 Abstract: The interoperability implied by the Navy and DoD's migration towards IP-enabled tactical radios remains elusive. Though it is technically possible to create a tactical network that is comprised of different IP-enabled radios, such networks are fundamentally ill-suited to the changes in topology and link quality typical of a carrier strike group's networked air-, sea-, and land-based elements. ATCorp proposes S-FAN - a low-SWaP, ruggedized router that can be mounted in carrier-based aircraft such as the E2 Hawkeye and even in much smaller airborne platforms. In addition to providing pervasive, adaptive communications over disparate communications links, the proposed S-FAN effort seeks to develop a dramatic improvement in router configuration that allows tactical networks, such as that employed by a carrier strike group, to be rapidly created and modified. The proposed effort leverages off-the-shelf, MIL-STD-810G hardware that ATCorp has previously flight tested. Benefits: A successful S-FAN research effort would produce a flight-qualified integration router that lets airborne assets like the E2 Hawkeye provide an Internet footprint for an entire strike group. Such a capability can logically extend beyond a carrier strike group to, for example, expeditionary units. S-FAN provides mission-persistent network communications to all participants. The commercial application of S-FAN focuses on the proposed research's secondary thrust: automated network configuration, which would significantly lower commercial entities' information technology (IT) costs by simplifying and speeding network deployment. Return