DTN-Med: Delay/Distruption Tolerant Networking for Mobile Operational Medicine

Operational medicine data needs to be delivered both point-to-point and across multiple hops to particular mobile unit or gateway devices, and possibly beyond in Delayed, Intermittently-connected, Low-bandwidth (DIL) environments without end-to-end connectivity. The Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) technology has great potential to provide these types of services to enable medical data sharing among users. However, existing DTN implementations do not provide suitable communication and data forwarding support for use in operational medical environments. Hence, there is a critical need for developing DTN mechanisms tailored for operational medical data sharing during prolonged field care and en route care, casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) to a Role 1 or Role 2 medical treatment facility (MTF), Role 3 combat support hospitals (CSH), and beyond. To address this critical need, Intelligent Automation Inc. (IAI) proposes to develop DTN-Med, an Android/iOS mobile device based DTN solution that is tailored for mobile operational medicine in DIL environments. The key innovation is to develop DTN-Med solution leveraging bundle-based standard technology and augment communication and DTN routing mechanisms that are required according to the CONOPS of mobile operational medicine. DTN-Med will significantly enhance the operational medical situational awareness and ultimately reduce battlefield mortality.