The Integrated Reconfigurable Intercommunications and Sensing (IRIS) Platform

The Integrated Reconfigurable Intercommunication and Sensing (IRIS) platform will create a paradigm shift in underwater acoustic communications systems and open up a new era of innovation and performance flexibility for the developer and end-user communities. The current model of proprietary and incompatible computational platforms, networking protocols, acoustic signal modulation formats and frequency ranges, analog electronics, and host platform interfaces has drastically limited the flexibility for the end-user to select the best “tool for the job” while also making it difficult to realistically compare the performance of different communications techniques under common conditions. All of these factors combine to create a high barrier-to-entry for developers resulting in a long history within the community of techniques that show promise at the R&D level never breaking through. This has discouraged developers, both academic and commercial, who have a lot of potential to contribute from staying in the field and has impeded innovation and creativity within the community.  The IRIS platform will provide undersea and gateway Navy assets, both manned and unmanned, with an open-source hardware and software platform for efficiently and flexibly meeting its current and future needs. The open-source IRIS platform will be highly modular in both hardware and software allowing for targeted upgrades or changes to selected components as operational requirements, platform capabilities and constraints and technological progress dictate.  This level of integration, flexibility and modularity is unprecedented in the undersea community and will create a new paradigm for future system development and for encouraging and facilitating innovation and contributions by a wide range of end-users, developers and vendors in the future.