Geographically-Aware and Targeted Secure Information Dissemination (GATSID)

ABSTRACT: The overall objective is to enable users on-the-move to reliably and securely send and receive information, targeted for recipients? geographic locations, filtered on their credentials, made persistently available if so designated, and tailored for their devices, facilitating their rapid reaction to changing operational conditions. The team proposes to integrate: wireless physical layer broadcast; link layer multicast where supported by hardware and firmware of mobile devices and infrastructure; network layer multicast where supported by routing infrastructure; an efficient, reliable, scalable multicast transport protocol; multicast address mapping per geography, credentials and metadata markups; automated means for tailoring per those markups; and a secure, robust, distributed file system. This will yield a publish-subscribe-query Data Distribution Service (DDS) with archival of persistent messages (a blackboard), where DDS topics map to multicast addresses and correspond to geographic and other filtering criteria. Policy Based Access Control to DDS topics will support restriction based upon security classification/clearance, roles and credentials, and will be enforced with strong encryption and capability based security. GATSID will address a major aspect of the challenge of delivering On-demand Information: What you need, When you need it?, enabling situation awareness systems to exploit tactical sensor data and deliver customized, location-specific intelligence products. BENEFIT: Critical and Capraro will contact the USAF transition professionals of whom we are already aware, specifically those local to the team at the AFRL-Rome Site (Franklin Hoke, Jr. of the Office of Research and Tech Applications, Jan Norelli, Director-SBA) and the Navy (Dawnbreaker-TAP contractor). Ray will also work with the SBIR TPOC and Program team to identify AFRL, then USAF and DoD PMs, PEOs, user groups, programs of record, Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs), and stated DoD and DHS operational needs. One key to initial transition will be a successful Phase I demo of relevant location-specified unicast and multicast SA data traffic of differing priorities from and to networked mobile platforms communicating over actual DoD wireless environments (single link/single path to multilinks/multipath). Post-such a Phase I demo, the team plans to approach the Program Managers DoD and DHS PMs identified via Ray"s research with the documented results of this effort, a recording of the demo, and an invitation to provide feedback into the features suite and technology roadmap. Within DoD, we believe this combination CYCLOPS/ARGOS/DDS software solution (mounted in smartphone and smart radios) can find a home within SOCom, and that this solution has a high correlation with the WIN-T (Warfighter Information Network Tactical) program, especially the unmanned vehicle networking technology components. The portions of the GD C4 planned systems and associated simulations, called Multiple Unified Simulation Environment (MUSE), and the Air Force Synthetic Environment for Reconnaissance and Surveillance (AFSERS), would appear to be very relevant Simulation and Modeling vehicles upon which to demonstrate and advance its TRL levels and transition into operational units. Beyond WIN-T, the next transition step would involve meetings and demos to the already known USAF ESC staff, with invitations extended through ESC and the Aeronautical Systems Center-CES to PM teams at PEO-Combat Mission Support (CM), PEO Cyber NetCentric, PEO ISR/Special Operation Forces (ISR/SOF), PEO Command and Control & Combat Support Systems (C2 & CS), and PEO C2ISR. Additionally, the team will target a presentation and late Phase I demo to the Navy"s ESC equivalent (the C4I PEO), to their internal network acquisition and support organization (Navy PEO-Enterprise Information Systems), and a number of operational program offices already identified and known to the team, including NAVSEA-PEO-Strike Weapons and Unmanned Vehicles). Similarly, the team will plan to present and demonstrate for the Army via invitations to Mrs. Roccio Bauer and Mr. Bud Graf with the Cognitive Networking Technologies groups at the Army CERDEC, PEO-Command, Control and Communications-Tactical (C3T), Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCom), and for the Army"s own networking infrastructure under the Enterprise Information Systems (EIS). Regarding DHS transition, the corps of law enforcement and crisis/disaster relief organizations possess similar needs in automatically acquiring and sharing data to fellow networked members based upon a developed"need to know"or"located near"list instead of a pre-loaded"everyone on the network"list, with minimal disruption to their operations. Potential, targeted user organizations also include those units operating in areas with complicated, multi-team, long duration missions plagued with intermittent comms due to natural factors(US DHS-Border Patrol and Customs; ad-hoc teams from the National Urban Search and Rescue Response System; DHS-Coast Guard"s ship- and port-inspection programs, and State Search and Rescue units) or man-made disasters (FEMA, Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs); Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, and Radiological (NBCR) crews; OSHA and DOT"s Haz Mat units; and ad hoc, multi-jurisdictional law enforcement teams). The initial marketing plan will also address those with a stated need for accurate, displayed knowledge of human and object SA to a subset of network nodes to conserve bandwidth within a contested space, such as the US Secret Service, Depts. of Justice and Treasury, the FBI"s Hostage Rescue Teams (HRTs), deployed Customs and ATF agent teams, and regional interdiction units The transition plan is to earn a TRL 8-9, be accepted by an approved DoD mobile, wireless platform and NSP provider, and negotiate to become a licensed OEM software component within their platform hardware. With the support of the PM team, a series of Phase I demos to the leadership of both operational and integration organizations (i.e.Space Command-Cyber Operations, StratCom) will be planned and executed. Commercial market transition will be focused on groups similar to the governmental target customers: specifically, corporate and private crisis responder teams prone to operating in ad hoc mixed teams with multiple purposes (and thus differing data needs at different times) with constrained bandwidth (i.e. facility security, environmental disaster units, firefighting teams, land- or sea-based emergency response, urban facility patrol/management, and inspectors within"dead zone"/confined/steel facilities). For example, the ability to ID range and location of specific targets to specific groups of smartphone-equipped network nodes (staff, lifts, trucks, train cars, and RFID-equipped products) within corporate campus-, warehouse-, or transmodal logistics facilities that have intermittent or expensive cellular coverage is a non-traditional market for DoD transition tech. Similarly, this software solution, instantiated on individual smartphones and on any controlling, networked hardware, and which can identify the range and location of staff, RF-ID card-equipped students or gerontological tenants, can be transitioned as an OEM or an After Market component into the emerging"SMART"home/school/office markets. Industry expositions have already been identified, anticipating a strategy of"show and tell"booths and demos driving industry interest and sales. The increasing prevalence of personal, mobile devices in defense, law enforcement, first responder, industrial, and commercial markets has resulted in an increased reliance upon these devices for timely and useful information (more than just data). When time or stress is not an issue, we can handle the flood of data and take the time to sift through and extract the information; when time and stress are an issue, we cannot afford to do this. Thus, it is imperative to reduce data and information overload by placing a system that can target the right information to the right people in the right time Organizations understand this, as proven by innumerable market surveys across multiple industries, all identifying information overload during times of crisis as a debilitating issue. Thus the marketing would not be to replace/compete with existing communication or network services (staff/asset location apps, SA apps, transmodal logistic tracking products, etc) but rather to provide a reliable, scalable, flexible, comprehensive, and automated addendum service to better distribute the data. CTI foresees this post-Phase II solution developing into products (OEM licensure or after-market products) targeted at spirals of user groups, as defined above, each spiral building on the success of its predecessor.