Connectivity Technologies for the Warfighter Network

In this Phase I SBIR Project foundational innovations in connectivity technologies are developed for the warfighter network to effectively increase the digital bandwidth to wirelessly connected users. The innovations involve wireless networking architectures and initial designs that provide high bandwidth, energy efficient, communication links between disparate wireless networks; the best two routing algorithms and projected throughput enhancement from their use; and approaches to model and simulate their performance. The innovative applications of radio and networking technologies are based on exploitation of the dense concentrations of wireless users to support high bandwidth but bursty applications such as image and video transfers. Communication between ad hoc networks containing nodes of disparate types can be accommodated by fitting some nodes with multiple radios, in order to bridge the different node types. Route discovery in the next-generation ad hoc routing protocol must then take into account the types of nodes involved in a transmission, to ensure that communication between the endpoints is possible. By studying the existing ad hoc routing protocols, suitable candidates can be selected to form the basis of new ad hoc routing protocols. Accordingly, new protocols can then be developed and tested, embodying the next-generation features.