| Warfighters today face severe limitations in accessing the electromagnetic spectrum because of significant growth in spectrum demands for deployed spectrum dependent systems, increased demand for information and advanced C2 concepts associated with net-centricity, and increased competition for spectrum resources from commercial and civil interests. This adds up to near complete spectrum saturation in areas of potential DoD deployment. The rapid pace of future Net Centric Warfare requires that tactical spectrum planning of on-the-move networks for mission specific demands be reduced from months/weeks to hours/minutes. In addition, new technology is needed for strategic spectrum planning to determine future spectrum requirements, develop spectrum policy/doctrine and help with spectrum supportability and acquisitions throughout current and future network centric transformation. Technology to automate these tasks for static and mobile networks is critical. The approach developed by Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (LM ATL) provides a seamless means to automate strategic and tactical spectrum planning in a flexible fashion, which both satisfies current tactical planning needs and accommodates impacts of new technologies and future network-centric warfare concepts.
The approach developed addresses critical shortfalls in spectrum planning and management by automating the spectrum planning process and mitigating the problem of spectrum saturation through conflict detection and resolution to maximize spectral reuse. Currently, no tools exist for automatically establishing a conflict free spectrum plan for on-the-move forces. In addition, current tools do not address the larger problem of allotment and allocation of bands of spectrum throughout and between elements of equipment hierarchy, at the theatre, force levels, and component levels. These problems have been attacked by the use of faster than real-time mission simulation using a Communications Effects Simulator (CES) to take into account effects like terrain and weather and coupling this with graph theoretic algorithms to enable automated synthesis of a conflict free or near conflict free spectrum plan for the mission duration.
Spectrum planning is a multi-dimensional optimization problem, which involves space, time, frequency, modulation-code, and other dimensions. A novel three-step process for conflict detection and de-confliction over a user specified mission duration has been devised. The process works for hierarchical architectures, i.e., the radio subnets can be comprised of multiple subnets. In addition, a suite of efficient algorithms has been devised to solve the de-confliction problem for on-the-move networks. The algorithms scale will provide good solutions. The simulation based process and algorithms have been bundled into a reusable tool—the Spectrum Plan Advisor (SPA). The SPA has been exercised in simulated scenarios. Detailed description of the process developed and test results from these scenarios are presented in this paper. The SPA has successfully processed a 5000 mobile node scenario and generated a conflict free spectrum plan in less than 10 minutes. Currently, de-confliction can take days for fixed installations and is non-existent for mobile forces. Thus, the SPA offers the potential for significant improvements over current approaches.
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