Tactical Data Links

Model, simulate and analyze the performance of a tactical data link for a national aerospace company

• A Ground Station (GS) is connected to the Early Warning Radar (EWR), via ground network infrastructure
• The GS starts up the network, does the time slot assignment, generates the crypto key and the frequency hopping pattern
• GS then broadcasts the Air Picture to all friendly aircraft
• Friendly aircraft broadcast their positions periodically to one another and to the GS
• When enemy aircraft is detected by the EWR it transmits information to the GS
• GS in turn broadcasts the updated Air Picture to friendly aircraft, which then engage the enemy

Performance Analysis

A set of simulation runs covering a wide range of input parameters were run to study the system performance. Some of the observations discovered after an in-depth analysis of the simulation results were -

• With the low bit rates available and with RF propagation losses too many Air Picture packets
• Time slots were not immediately available for the GS given the round robin slot allocation

Conclusions

• Reduce the Recognized Air Picture (RAP) packet size
• Move from a round robin to demand based slot allocation
• Layer 3 routing could be added in the future for communication between nets