Tactical Wireless Communications and Networks: Design Concepts and Challenges

6.1 Tactical GIG Notional Architecture

Instead of IP touch points with the TI, the tactical GIG has a seamless IP flow with gateway nodes between multiple subnets. As you go through the detailed explanation below, please notice the parallels between the soldier radio waveform (SRW) and wideband network waveform (WNW) in the tactical GIG and the single channel ground and airborne radio system (SINCGARS) and enhanced position location reporting system (EPLRS) radios with the TI covered in Section 5.5.

The lower layers of the tactical GIG (brigade and below) have tiers of IP-based subnets (islands of MANET). Figure 6.1 depicts a notional view of such layered islands (hierarchical subnets) of MANET. There is the SRW tier. This tier can have two s, one for soldier-to-soldier communications and one for networking sensors. Above that tier is the WNW tier which also has two sub-tiers. One sub-tier forms local subnets for vehicle-to-vehicle communications and the other is for global connectivity, which generates a single subnet over the entire theater. Note that at each tier can have multiple subnets, each with different frequencies (except for the global subnet), which form islands of MANET. Some selected nodes can have multichannel capability to access different subnets and work as gateways between the subnets (these nodes are denoted with two circles in the Figure 6.1). Above these layered subnets, comes the division level layer. This layer has another wireless mobile core network (the ...