JANUS-Based Services for Operationally Relevant Underwater Applications

This paper presents the design, test, and experimentation at sea of four JANUS-based services for operationally relevant underwater applications: 1) first contact and language switching; 2) transmission of automatic identification system data to submerged assets; 3) transmission of meteorological and oceanographic data to underwater vessels; and 4) support in distressed submarine operations. On March 24, 2017, JANUS was promulgated as a NATO standard (STANAG 4748) [1], marking the first time that a digital acoustic communications protocol is adopted at international level. JANUS is an open, simple, and robust modulation and coding scheme developed by the NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, in collaboration with academia and industry. The implementation of the services presented in this paper is based on a standardized protocol and offers the potential to widely increase the safety and efficiency in maritime operations. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that JANUS can be used in support of maritime operations, potentially increasing their efficiency. Such demonstration is achieved through experimentation at sea of four operationally relevant JANUS-based services. The four JANUS-based services discussed were validated during two different sea trials: REP15-Atlantic and REP16-Atlantic. During those trials, various heterogeneous configurations were considered, including the use of a state-of-the-art diesel-electric submarine, guaranteeing maximum relevance for validation and evaluation of the designed solutions. The collected results demonstrate that JANUS is a viable solution for operationally relevant underwater applications, thus validating the objective of this paper. Additionally, encouraging feedback has been provided by the operational community participating to the trials. The capabilities demonstrated served as an initial proof of concept and will certainly lead to newer requirements and eventually even more functionalities.