Mission Oriented Router with Protocol Heterogeneity (MORPH) for Dynamic Airborne Networks

ABSTRACT: Mayflower proposes an autoconfiguring router technology, namely the Mission-Oriented Router with Protocol Heterogeneity for Dynamic Airborne Network (MORPH). MORPH is a comprehensive autoconfiguration technology that allows the airborne network to automatically set itself up to facilitate the full networking functionality. This goal is much broader than the traditional view of autoconfiguration that primarily focuses on automatic acquisition of IP addresses. Facilitating fully autoconfigurable AN routers not only involves these traditional IP autoconfiguration concepts but also the autoconfiguration of protocol implementations and other factors that are sensitive to network"s operational environment. There are many challenges to deal with to realize this goal. In Phase I, Mayflower has developed a composite of MORPH technology components that facilitates innovative AN router autoconfiguration, efficient routing protocol discovery, automatic routing protocols selection, and policy-aware routing protocol optimization and reconfiguration. We have also implemented and demonstrated the functional components of aforementioned capabilities in the Mayflower Tactical MANET Test bed (TMT). In the proposed Phase II SBIR program, the Mayflower team will augment and enrich the MORPH technology, test and demonstrate it on the Mayflower Tactical MANET Test bed, and will ensure its commercialization via Air Force field test and demonstration in Phase III and beyond. BENEFIT: There is significant interest in autoconfiguration capability in the realm of disaster relief network where multiple parties may operate jointly with network merging and disconnecting during the relief effort. Moreover, the disaster relief first responders from different agencies and countries may use different network access devices with different protocols, and therefore form a heterogeneous network. In addition, there is a growing need for truly autoconfiguring networking capabilities in the home networking area as well as for small enterprise applications. The proposed MORPH system can provide a plug-n-play networking capability for these networks. The autoconfiguring router technology, MORPH, can enable rapid deployment the airborne networks without the lengthy mission planning. The ability to autoconfigure the airborne networking assets without manual intervention can significantly shorten the network deployment time. Networks can merge and disconnect during the operation without any preplanned complex reconfiguration requirements. The ability to auto-discover, auto-select, auto-configure, auto-tune, and switch the routing topologies (or even switch the routing protocols) based on the communication requirements and current networking conditions with adherence to prevailing policy would represent a key enabler in Network-Centric Warfare.