NSWC Dam Neck was selected to receive a $1.4 million grant from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to develop and deliver a mobile ad-hoc wireless network prototype for deployment in the tactical battlespace.
Roger W. Kuhn Jr., a Navy civilian network architect/information assurance engineer in NSWC Dam Neck's System Management Engineering and Analysis Branch (Code F33), will serve as a U.S. government trusted agent and will provide government oversight to this project to be executed by Fortress Technologies. Fortress, a secure wireless solutions provider, will deliver 10 prototypes of its ES520 Secure Wireless Bridges, with software modifications, to support advanced meshing capabilities.
Kuhn will be working closely with Fortress Technologies' Chief Technical Officer Magued Barsoum. Kuhn was notified Feb. 21, 2008, about the award.
"Within the 12-month timeframe allotted by this grant, we will rapidly develop, prototype and deliver 10 environmentally-ruggedized, secure wireless access bridges that support an improved form of tactical mobile peer-to-peer, or mobile ad-hoc network, (MANET) for deployment in the mobile, wireless tactical battlespace," Kuhn said.
The grant proposal, titled, Secure, Robust Tactical Wireless "MESH" Network, was selected for funding by OSD under the Quick Reaction Fund (QRF) program. The program, sponsored by OSD's Director of Defense Research and Engineering, "provides flexibility to respond to emergent DoD needs within budget cycles."
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) identifies the QRF as a program that takes advantage of promising technology breakthroughs that can be quickly field tested for an immediate impact on military operations. QRF grant recipients must deliver a military-specific prototype application within six to 12 months of being funded.
One aspect of NSWC Dam Neck's mission is to provide innovative capabilities by delivering force-level integrated and interoperable engineering solutions to the maritime, joint, special warfare and information operations domains.
Kuhn identified the opportunity to seek an alternative to current Defense Department MANET developmental efforts.
"Current efforts involve adapting centralized scheduler architectures that are normally employed in a wired environment, such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)-based routing, which is inefficient in terms of network performance and survivability in a tactical, mobile wireless environment," Kuhn said. "Hence, an alternative mobile mesh wireless protocolbased system needs to be developed and deployed … specifically for a mobile, wireless battlespace."
What this could mean for warfighters in theater is a reliable, robust, scalable, dynamic mobile tactical command and control (C2) system in which to operate.
Mesh networking is a way to route data, voice and instructions between nodes or devices attached to a computer network. It allows continuous connections and reconfiguration around broken or blocked paths by "hopping" from node to node until the destination is reached. A mesh network whose nodes are all connected to each other is a fully connected network.
Mesh networks differ from other networks in that the component parts can all connect to each other via multiple hops. Mesh networks can be seen as one type of ad-hoc network, but they generally are not mobile. MANET-ing and mesh networking are therefore closely related, but mobile ad-hoc networks also have to deal with significant problems introduced by the mobility of the nodes.
Kuhn, who is also a U.S. Coast Guard Reserve officer specializing in C4I, is known for his work in the wireless arena having co-authored the U.S. Coast Guard's secure wireless policy.
In 2007, Kuhn received a Certified Wireless Network Expert designation — a certification that less than 100 people hold worldwide.
According to Kuhn, the Certified Wireless Network Professional, or CWNP, is the industry standard for non-vendor specific Wireless LAN (WLAN) training and professional certification.
In 2008, Kuhn received the WiMAX Forum RF Network Engineer designation (WFRE No. 411). The WiMAX Forum is an industry-led, not-for-profit organization formed to certify and promote the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products based on the harmonized IEEE 802.16/ETSI Hiper-MAN standard. IEEE is the acronym for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
In 2007, Kuhn brought to NSWC Dam Neck the command's first ONR independent applied research (IAR) grant. Work on this $1.6 million grant is a collaborative effort with NSWC Dahlgren Division. The proposal, Application of IEEE 802.16 Technologies to the Global Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) Battlespace was approved by Dahlgren Division's Science and Technology Council in July 2007.
When the CHIPS staff met Kuhn during an April 16th visit to NSWC Dam Neck, he and co-workers, Chris Weeks and Charles McCallister, were moving into a refurbished lab. They were enthusiastic about their new space and their projects.
McCallister's expertise lies in radio frequency engineering. Weeks is an electronics engineer and the wireless lab manager.
"We are setting up a wireless lab that will support a tactical C2 technology/unmanned vehicle test range in the VACAPES (Virginia Capes) operational area [which is] adjacent to NSWC Dam Neck," Kuhn said.
ONR is currently funding the adaptation of Wi-Fi technology for mobility within a metropolitan area network (MAN) for scalability. But the Dam Neck team is investigating broadband technology as an alternative for mobile C2.
Teaming with Barsoum, Kuhn came up with an idea of combining a set of routing protocols that specifically support a scalable, mobile, tactical, ad-hoc architecture.
"There essentially are two developmental paths under the IEEE 802.11's draft amendment which is the emerging standard for wireless mesh networking. You can go down the Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) protocol path, which is what we are doing, or you can employ the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol path. That is what ONR is doing.
"The problem is that wireless networks are flat, wireless LANs have limited network addressing, and you have intermediary or stop-gap routing protocols like Mobile IP.
"Mobile IP doesn't lend [itself] to a seamless transfer, like a cell phone type of functionality. They tried to resolve that by using the OLSR protocol as a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) relay agent to resolve that and instead of using Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)- based authentication, they are evaluating the employment of cryptographicenhanced, Host Identity Protocol (HIP)," Kuhn said.
The Mobile IP communications protocol is designed to allow mobile device users to move from one network to another while maintaining a permanent IP address to provide a routing capability between wireless LANs.
Extensible Authentication Protocol, or EAP, is a universal authentication framework frequently used in wireless networks and point-to-point connections. Although the EAP protocol is not limited to wireless LANs and can be used for wired LAN authentication, it is most often used in wireless LANs.
The Host Identity Protocol provides a method of separating the end-point identifier and locator roles of IP addresses. It introduces a new Host Identity (HI) name space, based on public keys. The public keys are typically, but not necessarily, self-generated.
"After surveying current DoD C2 technology and unmanned vehicle development efforts, I had an epiphany: most mobile wired broadband technologies operate in the IEEE (U.S.) radio frequency C and S bands. DoD technologies employ these same bands," Kuhn said.
The Navy has a great deal of empirically-derived data about maritime propagation phenomena in the the S and C bands. That information will support Kuhn's ONR project.
"As a former Coast Guard weapons officer, I am familiar with radar-related RF ducting, Doppler shifts and other maritime RF propagation phenomena associated with temperature inversions, salinity of water, moisture content …
"Conceivably, once you come up with a software-based radio with an internal frequency agility capability and an associated mathematical model based upon certain atmospheric and environmental conditions, you could tailor a software-based radio to function at its best while being subjected to … atmospheric and environmental conditions," Kuhn continued.
"Additionally, given the infrastructure of conventional mobile broadband technologies like Mobile WiMAX, I foresaw the need of a self-scaling ad-hoc routing capability and that is how the second grant came about. The great thing about this protocol is it will be 'medium independent' [that means] it will work with IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.16 and Free Space Optics."
FSO refers to the transmission of modulated visible or infrared beams through the atmosphere to obtain optical communications. Like fiber, FSO uses lasers to transmit data, but instead of enclosing the data stream in a glass fiber, it is transmitted through the air. FSO works on the same principle as infrared television remote controls, wireless keyboards or wireless personal digital assistant devices.
As we left the lab, Kuhn's attention was immediately drawn to the task at hand: completing lab set up and diving back into the work that may transform battlefield communications.