FY26 Communications and Networking Applied Research

A Design for Maritime Superiority (2018) describes an operational architecture for distributed maritime operations (DMO) that "... will provide accurate, timely, and analyzed information to units, warfighting groups, and fleets." A critical component of this architecture is the Naval Tactical Grid (NTG) to connect distributed units into groups and distributed groups into fleets. Communications and networking technologies that can provide seamless, robust, connectivity are key enablers for the NTG.

These technologies will be deployed on a variety of platforms, both manned and unmanned, operating under challenging environmental and operational warfare conditions (lack of infrastructure, mobility, spectrum limitations, interference, multipath, atmospherics, jamming, electronic intercept, size/weight/power constraint, etc.) in different domains (land, maritime [includes both surface and undersea], cyber, and space). Successful Command and Control (C2) and decision making, at all levels of command, for DMO is critically dependent on these communications and networking technologies.