Spectral Coexistence and Reuse in Multifunctional Mobile Ad Hoc RF Networks

Spectral Coexistence and Reuse in Multifunctional Mobile Ad Hoc RF Networks: This Proposal addresses an important need for the Navy, i.e. ensuring critical RF connectivity to perform multiple functions (e.g. sensing, communications, and networking) within a mobile (e.g. ground or UAV based) ad hoc distributed network in a contested environment without the assistance of a network genie. Within the overall concept formulation, analysis, and implementation, several critical issues will be specifically addressed towards a detailed trade-off analysis. These include: (1) SWAP considerations, (2) LPI/LPD features, (3) Geolocation and node localization accuracy, (4) Messaging considerations, (5) System latency, (6) Synchronization issues, (7) Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) implementation, (8) Multi-objective optimization, (9) Propagation (i.e. scattering and multipath) considerations, and (9) Prototype demonstration. The performance improvement of the proposed implementation approach will be quantified vis-à-vis trade-offs. Radio spectrum is a key limited resource for future networks and its usage demands innovative, efficient and dynamic solutions. Coexistence and reuse among radar and telecommunication systems are currently becoming one of the challenging research topics, due to the growing demand in terms of required bandwidth from both communication and radar systems, as well as their need to coexist in the same frequency bands. Our proposed research will involve modeling efforts, simulation studies, and experimental validation to dynamically (i.e. on-the-fly) optimize spectral coexistence and spectral reuse between different types of wireless modalities (e.g., communications, networking, sensing), which can be easily integrated into current Navy and Marine Corps systems. Bandwidth is a very scarce commodity, and multi-objective optimization will be investigated to arrive at solutions making the best use of available bandwidth between radar and communications, for example. These priorities can change rapidly, and therefore, an algorithm to allocate bandwidth within the available spectral space is required. The following four main topics will be addressed: (1) Waveform Optimization; (2) Spectral Interleaving; (3) Cross-Layered Dynamic Spectrum Allocation; and (4) Fuzzy-Logic Spectrum Allocation. Close cooperation is envisaged with ONR and SPAWAR scientists with significant sharing of research results and data as well as several face-to-face meeting during the currency of the project.