OverKey: Rapidly Deploying DCGS Next Gen

Today’s DCGS comprises core sites in Hawaii, Virginia, California, South Korea, and Germany, and sixteen distributed sites. Sensor data collected from Air Force big wing ISR systems is processed at centralized “hubs”. Stovepiped intelligence products are then disseminated to “spokes” at the tactical edge – e.g., Joint Task Force headquarters or operational and tactical level units. This hub-and-spoke architecture does not allow the Air Force’s greatest competitive advantage – namely, the creativity and ingenuity of its Airmen – to take full advantage of the vast amount of data that is available. Tomorrow’s DCGS must make all intelligence data discoverable and accessible, not just finished single-source products. The traditional wide area networking technology that underpins today’s DCGS cannot support the mesh architecture required to deliver military and commercial sensor data to Analysis and Exploitation Teams (AET) at the tactical edge. Instead, the AF DCGS Next Gen must employ 5G techniques such as QoS driven traffic prioritization and intelligent routing; networking flattening and convergence; and diversity of transport over cellular, SATCOM and WiFi to realize a survivable software mesh topology. In this SBIR, Caliola will develop, demonstrate, and deploy a modernized network architecture for AF DCGS Next Gen. Our approach builds on our OverKey® mesh VPN product. OverKey replaces the traditional hub-and-spoke VPN architecture with a zero-trust, distributed mesh that enables secure and collaborative communications over unsecured and untrusted networks. Developed with SBIR funding from the Marine Corps, Space Force, and Air Force, OverKey has been successfully demonstrated over heterogeneous tactical edge networks, over 5G cellular networks, and over Starlink. OverKey already implements many of the SD-WAN features required for AF DCGS Next Gen. It presents a flattened and converged network to users on top of encrypted, overlay tunnels that can traverse any means of transport. OverKey natively supports multicast, which is critical since multiple AETs will require access to the same raw sensor data. Finally, its overlay network management protocols facilitate QoS-driven intelligent routing and traffic prioritization. In the proposed Phase I effort, Caliola will develop an OverKey-enabled design for AF DCGS Next Gen. Elements of our design will be demonstrated on top of the commercial Internet – to include utilization of commercial 5G cellular and Starlink SATCOM for maximum resilience – and a full-scale prototype will be demonstrated in GNS3, an industry-standard network software emulator. In Phase II, we will leverage our OverKey product to evolve the architecture to TRL 8 within twelve months. We will then rapidly mature our AF DCGS Next Gen solution to TRL 9 in Phase III.