Seamless Route Management & Route Distribution Across Heterogeneous Networks

Seamless networking is a key performance enabler for the Future Force (FF) network. The FF network is envisaged as an amalgamation of multiple networks, including mobile ad hoc networks, serving different operational needs. Commercial Border Gateway Routing Protocols such as BGP are largely deficient in addressing the needs for dynamic selection of border nodes that is an essential component of the CONOPS for FF networks. We propose to design a flexible and scalable Inter Domain Routing (IDR) solution for ad hoc tactical networks that will allow flexible policies and techniques for border gateway selection that are resilient to dynamic network and traffic conditions, that will be scalable across large, heterogeneous networks, be QoS-aware to implement appropriate Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between networks, and will take into account appropriate COMSEC considerations. We also propose a control architecture to reduce congestion for the entire network. In Phase 1, we will complete a requirements analysis of IDR for tactical wireless networks, propose an IDR solution and quantitatively evaluate different architecture choices to isolate a proposed architecture for a flexible and scalable IDR solution that can be smoothly transitioned to WIN-T and FCS programs.