Directional Network Waveform

Wade Trappe (ECE/WINLAB) and Ivan Seskar (WINLAB) have won a contract from the Army (funded in collaboration with DSCI) titled Directional Network Waveform. The funding for the contract is $112,149 with a performance period of 5/21/15 to 9/30/15.

The abstract is shown below.

Congratulations to Wade and Ivan on this achievement!

Abstract:

Directional Network Waveform

Traditional ad hoc networking protocols enable a local node to gather information about itself; however, this does not transition well into understanding the network holistically. Tactical networks require the need to operate effectively under the presence of disruption, attack, congestion, or local failures. By utilizing a distributed control plane that shares node state information in conjunction with a hierarchical and distributed cognitive engine that can tune cross-layer network protocols and algorithms, it is possible to move information across the network occurring at orders of magnitude greater than current approaches, with better survivability and with less interference using directional antennas. This research effort will define and develop a directional networking software architecture based on provisioning a separate control plane that supports cognitive distributed control for adaptively managing the resources of mobile ad-hoc networks equipped with directional antennas so as to provide robust and high-levels of communication performance for tactical mission operations. Development efforts will focus on FPGA-based implementation of communication algorithms needed in support of such a directional networking waveform.