Designing Defensive Strategies to Protect Terrestrial-Satellite Communication Networks in Contested Environments
Abstract
Maintaining open communication channels between assets and their command base is crucial for conducting operations in denied-contested areas. Interruptions in communication can severely impact the success of missions by reducing situational awareness and leaving the assets vulnerable to threats from both unintentional and intentional actions. Additionally, limited communication can hinder the ability of the assets to extract and share information, which is essential for intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance operations. Given the lack of sufficient ground communication interfaces in contested areas to support the assets, it is common for missions to rely on terrestrial-satellite communication networks (TSCN), where the primary backbone is composed of satellites acting as data relays. Although vital for operations in contested areas, communications supported on TSCN are exceptionally dynamic, challenging to manage, and highly susceptible to jamming attacks when designed without enough redundancy. The main objective of this project is to develop an optimization framework to design proactive and reactive strategies to ensure that teams of assets relying on TSCNs have continuously open communication channels with their command base for the entire duration of their missions. The proposed approach will leverage technologies developed in the areas of network interdiction, robust network design, and multi-level optimization to counteract disruptive non-kinetic operations (e.g., jamming) conducted by adversarial actors aimed at limiting the communication capabilities and the situational awareness of the assets. The central idea of the proposed methodology is to provide fundamental, transformative, and comprehensive developments on network interdiction, specifically for the space domain. Validation studies will use computer simulations depicting real-world scenarios.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 14, 2024
- Source ID
- FA95502310742
Entities
People
- Jose L. Walteros
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- Research Foundation for the State University of New York
- United States Air Force