Cooperative Multicast and Broadcast at the Tactical Edge (COMBAT)
Abstract
ÒExpeditionary Force 21Ó places emphasis on company-sized landing teams operating at the tactical edge. For warfighters in these small units, efficiently sharing real-time situational awareness information is critical to success. Currently, communications and situational awareness are greatly limited by the complexity of the RF environment at the tactical edge where statically pre-determined links are easily disrupted by both mobility and the adversary. The Cooperative Multicast and Broadcast at the Tactical Edge (COMBAT) project directly addresses the need for a non-fixed communications infrastructure which enables expeditionary warfighters to exchange vital information. COMBAT research addresses 1) spectral efficiency techniques to increase the information capacity per unit spectrum and 2) a cross-layer approach (PHY and MAC) to information movement without impacting architecture flexibility, while 3) developing proto-type software radio architectures that can quickly implement new PHY and MAC layer protocols. COMBAT performs this research from within the unique context of the Marine and Navy environment of ad-hoc, self-organizing networks and low-throughput, mobile, wireless, internodal connections. COMBAT realizes these benefits by addressing the limitations of multicast and broadcast with in a tactical environment with a comprehensive scheme that allows fast and reliable delivery of packets through multi-node link-layer cooperative transmissions and resource-efficient multiuser simultaneous feedback. COMBAT provides the following innovations: ¥ A link-layer cooperative transmission scheme that allows fast delivery of IP multicast and broadcast packets through cooperative transmissions at tactical edge networks. ¥ A link-layer multi-node operational framework that integrates contention-free multiple transmissions and multiuser simultaneous feedback for reliable cooperative multicast. ¥ A fadinginsensitive channel metric to characterize link quality for real time rate estimations. ¥ A link-layer neighbor rate exchange scheme that allows each node to be aware of the link quality to its neighbors as well as those seen by its neighbors. ¥ Transparency to the network and upper layers, thus it supports IP-based tactical network applications with low transition barrier. COMBAT leverages substantial research investments from DARPA, NSF, JTRS and industry on edge-level networking technologies, spectral reuse, and software defined radios and focuses them on Marine expeditionary missions and applications. The University of Southern CaliforniaÔs Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI) will oversee the effort, leading the integration, development, and testing of the prototype testbed. USC/ISI is teamed with C-3 Comm Systems, who will lead the architecture and PHY-layer protocol development, and New York University, who will lead the MAC-layer protocol development. The team will use its wellestablished expertise in these areas to develop a simulation model to derive specifications for and implement a prototype 11 node system. The COMBAT effort will progress in regular spirals over a 33 month period, culminating in an over the air demonstration of reliable, cooperative multicast networking, which will provide an unprecedented leap in expeditionary force communication and network capabilities at the edge, not just for todayÕs edge networks, but future networks as well.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 10, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141612191
Entities
People
- Mathew French
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Southern California