The Application of Satellite Communication Technology to Operational Knowledge Acquisition

Situation management systems for use in the modern battlefield and for disaster response require the continuous collection and interpretation of field data. Typically, this data must be collected from areas that are either remote or have suffered heavy damage and therefore are not supported by either existing terrestrial infrastructure or wireless networks. When traditional communication modes are not available, the cost associated with acquiring situational data via alternative methods such as duplex satellite telemetry is prohibitively high. Additionally, access to these areas tends to be tenuous or infrequent, requiring the remote data-gathering assets themselves to be reliable, resilient, and able to run for an extended duration from a small power source. Simplex telemetry-using code phase division multiple access (CPDMAtrade) spread spectrum algorithms-employs satellite connectivity to provide data exfiltration from remote areas. Furthermore, CPDMAtrade shifts signal processing complexity away from the many distributed transmitters used in traditional systems and places it into a single receiver. The transfer to the single receiver, a sensor enabled notification system (SENS) applique, significantly reduces the cost and complexity of data exfiltration and optimizes the system to process many simultaneously generated transmissions from data-gathering end-point devices. This paper discusses the application of commercial simplex telemetry to operational knowledge acquisition in areas where traditional communications modes are not available, and explores the next generation system development paths of dual and terrestrial simplex communications