Connectivity Technologies for Tactical Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

Tactical Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) operate in hostile environments, and consist of a highly connected heterogeneous mixture of nodes. Current routing protocols for MANETs disregard node heterogeneity and high connectivity, leading to poor bandwidth utilization. Environmental hostility is also disregarded, making the network susceptible to packet interception and eavesdropping. The proposed effort (Phases I and II) will develop and prototype a suite of novel routing protocols which will dramatically increase the digital bandwidth of tactical MANETs, while making them robust against packet interception and eavesdropping. The suite will be based on HSLS (Hazy Sighted Link State) routing, which is the first ad hoc routing protocol that scales with network size. HSLS routing will be enhanced in two ways: (1) To benefit from node heterogeneity and to account for a hostile environment, we define an Entity Capability Profile (ECP) for nodes, describing several characteristics of the nodes, including its degree of attack susceptibility; (2) Taking advantage of high-connectivity, we propose a novel multiple path routing technique we call multi-ply routing, centered on multiple, nested parallel paths. The resulting ECP sensitive multi-ply HSLS suite of routing protocols -- ECP-mp-HSLS routing -- will dramatically increase network capacity, while protecting the network against eavesdropping and packet interception. BBN Technologies will serve as a subcontractor, providing unique expertise on MANET routing and support for prototyping in Phase II.