Biblio

Naval Battlefield Network communications rely on wireless network technologies to transmit data between different naval entities, such as ships and shore nodes. Existing naval battle networks heavily depend on the satellite communication system using single-path TCP for reliable, non-interactive data. While satisfactory for traditional use cases, this communication model may be inadequate for outlier cases, such as those arising from satellite failure and wireless signal outage. To promote network stability and assurance in such scenarios, the addition of unmanned aerial vehicles to function as relay points can complement network connectivity and alleviate potential strains in adverse conditions. The inherent mobility of aerial vehicles coupled with existing source node movements, however, leads to frequent network handovers with non-negligible overhead and communication interruption, particularly in the present single-path model. In this paper, we propose a solution based on multi-path TCP and software-defined networking, which, when applied to mobile wireless heterogeneous networks, reduces the network handover delay and improves the total throughput for transmissions among various naval entities at sea and littoral. In case of single link failure, the presence of a connectable relay point maintains TCP connectivity and reduces the risk of service interruption. To validate feasibility and to evaluate performance of our solution, we constructed a Mininet- WiFi emulation testbed. Compared against single-path TCP communication methods, execution of the testbed when configured to use multi-path TCP and UAV relays yields demonstrably more stable network handovers with relatively low overhead, greater reliability of network connectivity, and higher overall end-to-end throughput. Because the SDN global controller dynamically adjusts allocations per user, the solution effectively eliminates link congestion and promotes more efficient bandwidth utilization.

Efficient application of Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) technology on the battlefield calls for innovative solutions to control and manage the deluge of heterogeneous IoBT devices. This paper presents an innovative paradigm to address heterogeneity in controlling IoBT and IoT devices, enabling multi-force cooperation in challenging battlefield scenarios.

Tactical edge networks represent a uniquely challenging environment from the communications perspective, due to their limited bandwidth and high node mobility. Several middleware communication solutions have been proposed to address those issues, adopting an evolutionary design approach that requires facing quite a few complications to provide applications with a suited network programming model while building on top of the TCP/IP stack. Information Centric Networking (ICN), instead, represents a revolutionary, clean slate approach that aims at replacing the entire TCP/IP stack with a new communication paradigm, better suited to cope with fluctuating channel conditions and network disruptions. This paper, stemmed from research conducted within NATO IST-161 RTG, investigates the effectiveness of Named Data Networking (NDN), the de facto standard implementation of ICN, in the context of tactical edge networks and its potential for adoption. We evaluated an NDN-based Blue Force Tracking (BFT) dissemination application within the Anglova scenario emulation environment, and found that NDN obtained better-than-expected results in terms of delivery ratio and latency, at the expense of a relatively high bandwidth consumption.

P2P applications deployment on MANETs is motivated by the popularity of these applications, coupled with the widespread use of mobile devices. P2P applications and MANETs have common features such as decentralization, self organization, and the absence of dedicated servers or infrastructure. The deployment often faces specific performance challenges resulting from topological overlay and underlay mismatch, limited bandwidth constraint and dynamic topology changes. Hierarchical MANETs are a special type of MANETs where some nodes have specific routing roles to allow inter- cluster communications. Such topologies (typical for tactical networks) render a successful P2P deployment more challenging. We developed a novel approach for P2P deployment in such networks by bringing topology-awareness into the overlay, mapping the underlay topology (structure) to the logical overlay and building a hierarchically-structured logical overlay on top of the hierarchical underlay. Simulation results demonstrated a significant performance advantage of our proposed deployment solution vs. a flat logical overlay using different configurations and mobility scenarios.

Mobile military networks are uniquely challenging to build and maintain, because of their wireless nature and the unfriendliness of the environment, resulting in unreliable and capacity limited performance. Currently, most tactical networks implement TCP/IP, which was designed for fairly stable, infrastructure-based environments, and requires sophisticated and often application-specific extensions to address the challenges of the communication scenario. Information Centric Networking (ICN) is a clean slate networking approach that does not depend on stable connections to retrieve information and naturally provides support for node mobility and delay/disruption tolerant communications - as a result it is particularly interesting for tactical applications. However, despite ICN seems to offer some structural benefits for tactical environments over TCP/IP, a number of challenges including naming, security, performance tuning, etc., still need to be addressed for practical adoption. This document, prepared within NATO IST-161 RTG, evaluates the effectiveness of Named Data Networking (NDN), the de facto standard implementation of ICN, in the context of tactical edge networks and its potential for adoption.

Tactical communication networks lack infrastructure and are highly dynamic, resource-constrained, and commonly targeted by adversaries. Designing efficient and secure applications for this environment is extremely challenging. An increasing reliance on group-oriented, tactical applications such as chat, situational awareness, and real-time video has generated renewed interest in IP multicast delivery. However, a lack of developer tools, software libraries, and standard paradigms to achieve secure and reliable multicast impedes the potential of group-oriented communication and often leads to inefficient communication models. In this paper, we propose an architecture for secure and reliable group-oriented communication. The architecture utilizes NSA Suite B cryptography and may be appropriate for handling sensitive and DoD classified data up to SECRET. Our proposed architecture is unique in that it requires no infrastructure, follows NSA CSfC guidance for layered security, and leverages NORM for multicast data reliability. We introduce each component of the architecture and describe a Linux-based software prototype.