An architecture for covert unmanned/unattended network discovery

摘要

A common problem in modern military communication networks is node discovery. In order to form a robust and efficient network each node needs to notify the network of its existence and, where security policies allow, to report its location. Furthermore, the process of fast and covert new node identification and recognition can help prevent friendly fire incidents. Once a network is established, new nodes often need to join the existing network, and they need a way to do this without compromising their own security, or the security of the network that they are joining. In addition, an established network requires a method of discovering the existence of another disjoint network that has migrated into communication range, so that a cross-link can be established between the networks in order to form a larger network. This process of nodes "discovering" each other is called node discovery, and this provides a capability that has many applications. A good node discovery scheme for military communication related applications has a number of properties including: fast and reliable network entry, covertness, secure and jam proof signaling, and range extension compared to the primary communications link itself. For the purposes of this paper the mechanism that provides node discovery will be called the Discovery Waveform. The Discovery Waveform has many applications such as terminal discovery for wireless communications, node discovery for establishing networking, and seemingly unrelated applications such as bursting time critical data.