Cognitive Airborne Networks for Defense Operations (CAN-DO)

The objective of the CAN-DO project is to create an adaptive cognitive network whose components work together within the rapidly changing challenges and constraints of an airborne tactical wireless MANET to enable fast and reliable delivery of one-to-many and many-to-many information. mZeal Communications and teammate iRobot envision such a network as an information-delivery framework capable of modifying its own behavior: a resourceful, clever, and self-aware system of cooperating actors with plans and goals. According to this vision, the resources for which the network is responsible include not only the traditional nodes, ports, packets, and interfaces, but also the content and meaning of the information it carries. The central focus of our proposal is cross-layer network architecture, the sharing of information between layers of network function that have traditionally hidden their information from one another, as a unifying principle for solving the problems of one-to-many and many-to-many data exchange over an unstable infrastructure. We also identify the key helper technologies that will act together to make the architecture real: Software-Defined Radio, distributed intelligent agents, peer-to-peer multicast and adaptive applications.