TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Information Systems

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Joint Tactical Radio System - Network Enterprise Domain - ACAT I

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: Develop a set of more efficient and scalable protocols that improves the performance of Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW) that adapt to a highly mobile wireless tactical environment. The enhanced WNW shall be fully compatible with current WNW.

DESCRIPTION: The Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW) utilized by the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) provides a tactical wireless internetworking capability for both users and backbone infrastructure. WNW uses an adaptive networking architecture that optimizes network routing performance and overall network stability for various tactical applications. WNW has a full set of networking features and is scalable to a large number of nodes with medium mobility and medium density network coverage areas. Good performance with large scalability is a significant challenge for WNW in a mobile ad-hoc tactical environment. Dynamic adaptation to maintain the waveform performance and continuation of the operation in a multi-channel and multi-data-rate SDR is also a challenge. The enhancement will be focusing on improving WNW protocols and algorithms in the areas of Link Adaptation algorithm, dynamic and distributed resource allocation, or mechanisms for improved packet delivery rates, to improve current WNW performance for large scale sparse and dense networks. One of the key ideas is that the new enhancements will enable dynamic adaptation to the changing physical channel conditions, dynamic spectrum allocation that are caused by operational events such as mission update and mobility, or provide augmentation to provide improved packet completion delivery rates. For example: traditional adaptive power control is a link layer protocol with the goal of minimizing the transmission power while maintaining the connectivity of a single link. In the new adaptive power control paradigm, the impacts of the transmission power adaptation are considered not only by the link layer design, but also by the MAC and MANET routing layers design. By changing a transmission power at a single node, it changes the interference level to neighborhood nodes and the local topology, and therefore, the channel scheduling and the routing path are altered. The enhancement shall provide an integrated adaptive power control solution in the link, MAC and routing layers to enhance the WNW performance.

PHASE I: Conduct design trade studies and perform a proof-of-concept demonstration (through either Simulation or Emulation) for a set of algorithms and protocols. The study shall identify performance criteria, any changes needed to the baseline JTRS WNW, and applicable test tools needed to implement the approach.

PHASE II: Develop and demonstrate a "reference implementation" on a SDR or some emulation and simulation test bed. Document as a stand-alone architecture and also as a change proposal package to the current JTRS WNW. Demonstrate the implementation in accordance with performance criteria developed in Phase I.

PHASE III: Transition the enhancement algorithms and protocols to applicable JTRS platforms and perform Development Tests. In addition, the software generated in this project is planned to be incorporated into the JTRS Enterprise Business model, which allows JTRS vendors to utilize common software.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: There is currently a significant market demand for an dynamic adaptive MANET technology in certain DoD/Government Agency, emergency services, Homeland Security applications. The product of this project will provide an enhancement that can be leveraged to current JTRS waveforms and future military applications. Homeland Security initiatives are driving municipal, county, state, and federal agencies to obtain an interoperable communications capability. Software Defined Radio and digital communications approaches are emerging as the next-generation solution to robust interoperability. The technology developed from this topic is directly applicable to these non-DOD interoperable communications applications.

REFERENCES:
1. North, Brown and Schiavone, "Joint Tactical Radio System � Connecting the GIG to the Tactical Edge", Proceedings MILCOM�06, 23-25 Oct 2006.
Source: (http://enterprise.spawar.navy.mil/UploadedFiles/JTRS_OVERVVIEW_MILCOM06_v12.pdf)

2. C. David Young "The mobile data link (MDL) of the joint tactical radio system wideband networking waveform", MILCOM 2006 - IEEE Military Communications Conference, vol. 25, no. 1, October 2006, pp. 3493 - 3498

3. C.A. Santivanez, R. Ramanathan, "Hazy Sighted Link State (HSLS) Routing: A Scalable Link State Algorithm," BBN Technical Memorandum No. 1301, August 2001. Available at http://www.cuwireless.net/downloads/HSLS.pdf

KEYWORDS: Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS), Wideband Networking Waveform (WNW), Software Defined Radio (SDR), Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET), Link Power Adaptation, Dynamic distributed scheduling algorithm, dynamic spectrum allocation.

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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