Method for communication in a tactical network

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9853834-B2
Application number	US-201414276774-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 13, 2014
Priority date	Oct 29, 2009
Publication date	Dec 26, 2017
Grant date	Dec 26, 2017

Abstract

A method is described for communication in a tactical network. A gateway is communicatively COUPLABLE to one or more tactical nodes and to one or more other gateways. The gateway is programmed to transmit information to and/or receive information from other gateways. Information exchanged includes gateway attributes, link attributes, service availability, and/or data availability. The gateway optionally provides quality of service, distributed persistence, load balancing, and/or transformation services. Services are provided in a modular, service-oriented architecture (SOA) to accommodate the addition of services and/or applications.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for communication in a tactical network, said method implemented by a first gateway including a processor and a memory area, said method comprising:
detecting, by the first gateway, a tactical node;
associating, by the first gateway, a global network address and a name with the tactical node;
transmitting, by the first gateway, the global network address and the name to an address resolution server via a global network communication interface;
in response to receiving a message directed to the global network address, transmit the message to the tactical node;
receiving, by the first gateway, tactical node data from the tactical node in response to the message directed to the global network address;
storing, in the memory area, tactical node data received from the tactical node; and
transmitting, by the first gateway, a data availability message indicating that the tactical node data is stored on the first gateway, to a second gateway via a tactical network communication interface, the data availability message including metadata describing the tactical node data.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein storing tactical node data comprises storing one or more of the following: a sensor reading, an audio sequence, a still image, and a video sequence.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the metadata includes one or more of the following: a time at which the tactical node data was captured, a data type, and a geographic location corresponding to the tactical node data.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, at the first gateway, from the second gateway a request for the tactical node data; and
transmitting, at the first gateway, the tactical node data from the memory area to the second gateway.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the tactical node data is first tactical node data, said method further comprising:
receiving, at the first gateway, a plurality of requests for the first tactical node data;
storing, in the memory area, the plurality of requests for the first tactical node data;
receiving, at the first gateway, a second tactical node data from the tactical node;
receiving, at the first gateway, a plurality of requests for the second tactical node data;
storing, in the memory area, the plurality of requests for the second tactical node data; and
creating an access pattern based on the plurality of requests for the first tactical node data and the plurality of requests for the second tactical node data.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein creating an access pattern comprises comparing a time of receipt and metadata criteria from each of the plurality of requests for the first tactical node data with a time of receipt and metadata criteria from each of the plurality of requests for the second tactical node data.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising:
storing, in the memory area, the second tactical node data received from the tactical node; and
if the access pattern indicates the second tactical node data is correlated with the first tactical node data, transmitting, by the first gateway, the second tactical node data to the second gateway based on the received request for the first tactical node data without receiving a request for the second tactical node data from the second gateway.

8. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:
comparing a time of receipt and metadata criteria from each of the plurality of requests for the first tactical node data;
determining a schedule for retrieving the first tactical node data based on the comparison;
retrieving the first tactical node data prior to receiving a request for the first tactical node data based on the schedule; and
transmitting the retrieved first tactical node data in response to the request for the first tactical node data.

9. The method of claim 6 , wherein creating the access pattern further comprises:
comparing the metadata criteria from each of the plurality of requests for the first tactical node data with the metadata criteria from each of the plurality of requests for the second tactical node data;
determining a subset of the plurality of requests for the first tactical node data and a subset of the plurality of requests for the second tactical node data based on the comparison;
determining a time difference between the time of receipt for the subset of the plurality of requests for the first tactical node data in the subset and the time of receipt for the subset of the plurality of requests for the second tactical node data in the subset; and
determining a correlation between at least one of the plurality of requests for the first tactical node data in the subset and the plurality of requests for the second tactical node data in the subset based on the time difference.

Assignees

• Boeing Co

Inventors

• Meier John L
• Ayyagari Arun
• Smith Brian James
• Zamith Fernando Afonso
• Hanks Carl Joseph
• Howard Ronald J
• Zuver Christopher K
• Gray Michael R

Classifications

• H04L47/2475

  for supporting traffic characterised by the type of applications · CPC title

• H04W84/18

  Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks · CPC title

• H04L67/1014

  based on the content of a request · CPC title

• H04L67/288

  Distributed intermediate devices, i.e. intermediate devices for interaction with other intermediate devices on the same level · CPC title

• H04L43/0829

  Packet loss · CPC title