TACTICAL INFORMATION INTEROPERABILITY & MANAGEMENT (TIIM)

We propose a “bottoms-up” solution to Tactical Information Interoperability Management (TIIM) comprising a hybrid of emerging systems from the commercial domain plus a TIIM layer for management and routing. The emerging systems are tailored to small, disadvantaged users and hold the promise for easy adaptation to swarms of robotic assets. One is 802.11 and its ad hoc networking derivatives, such as SECNET11 and the evolving networks for vehicle safety communications. The other is a combination of COTS TDMA radios, such as the Freewave radios already used by ScanEagle and other small UAS, plus distributed TDMA resource allocation designed to provide high efficiency at the MAC layer. A candidate for the distributed resource allocation package is already available as a pair of international standards for aviation and maritime users. The TIIM will tie these technologies together in a single network, provide for aircraft trajectory adjustment needed to satisfy advanced applications such as data bridge and airlift, and provide for performance monitoring. Our objective is to: a) create a testbed for this hybrid networking architecture; and b) offer a militarily-useful capability that could be deployed at the end of a Phase II effort.