A Holistic Approach to Optimal and Secure Tactical Wireless Broadband Systems

ABSTRACT: In this proposal, a holistic approach to managing multi-hop broadband wireless communication network is proposed. It consists of three intertwined components including i) a cognitive sensing infrastructure for sensing and situation awareness at both physical layer and network layer to support the context-aware operation of the communication network, ii) a cognitive routing infrastructure for the proactive configuration of wireless communication network, QoS-aware hierarchical scheduling, cognitive multi-timescale routing, admission control and frequency management, and iii) a waveform adaptation infrastructure for power control, waveform shaping, dynamic spectrum access as well as avoidance of interference and jammers. The project will develop a cognitive network infrastructure for situation awareness and waveform adaptation at the physical layer, and permeate its benefits to other layers including medium access control and packet scheduling, admission control, joint routing and spectrum management, and mission-driven application layers. The cognition network will enable optimized network routing and management relative to user intents and wide-area net-centric sources, leading to mission-driven network optimization that enables covert communication, interference control, robust routing, and efficient random access. BENEFIT: The proposed RF cartography-enabled cognitive airborne system has tremendous potential in many military applications. The cognition infrastructure such as the RF cartography and its application to cognition-enabled tactical wireless networking is a research area critical for national security and battlefield information collection. It can also be directly used for developing of advanced mission planning and emergency preparedness decision support systems such as extensions to the Space Situational Awareness Fusion Intelligent Research Environment [SAFIRE] program, Predictive Awareness & Net-Centric Analysis for Collaborative Intel Assessment (PANACIA), JSPOC Situational Awareness Response System (JSARS), BMDS system, and Aegis combat system program. The technologies developed under our mission-oriented cross-layer analyses and designs will enhance the capabilities of the Objective Force Warrior (OFW) and the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) programs with novel power control, scheduling, routing, mobility management and resource allocation algorithms for communication/networking functions. The DOD contact who knows the details of our work and who knows the above programs is Dr. Erik Blasch from AFRL. The market for military applications is quite large. Our research thrusts on RF environment map estimation algorithms will have direct implications to random field estimation tasks for wireless sensor networks in various monitoring applications, such as structural health monitoring for critical national infrastructure, habitat monitoring, homeland security, and remote sensing. Other potential commercial applications include police and first responders for US Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security, multi-layered sensing, disaster assessment, air traffic control system, the national weather service, physical security systems, law enforcement agency, emergency control center, border and coast patrol, pollution monitoring, remote sensing and global awareness. We expect the aggregated market size will be similar to that of military applications.