Distributed Time Division Multiple Access (DTDMA) - Principles and Analysis Techniques

The principles of Distributed Time Division Multiple Access (DTDMA) technology are delineated. DTDMA is currently being implemented as the U.S. Navy's Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) in a full scale development program. This effort is under contract to TADCOM, a joint venture of ITT Avionics Division and Hughes Aircraft Company. JTIDS is a spread spectrum system which supports concurrent multi-CNI function (Communication, Navigation and Identification), multi-terminal and multi-net operation. Efficiency, flexibility and high jamming resistance is obtained by utilizing in its design the three ambiguities of signal space: time, frequency and code; and also sharing terminal resources among all of the functions (integrated CNI system). A combined simulation/analytic technique is described which provides design information and predicts terminal capacity and anti-jam performance trade-offs, for both digital data and digital voice data links.