Joint Tactical Radio System network application programming interface definition-determination of an effective interface mechanism for distributing the network communication protocol stack components within a joint tactical radio that takes into account interoperability performance, and portability

The Government intends to procure a family of affordable Joint Tactical Radios (JTRs) to meet military communications requirements of increased communication performance and interoperability to support Joint Vision 2010 and Network Centric Warfare. This procurement will be accomplished in a competitive, non-developmental environment capitalizing on commercial technologies and processes to the maximum extent possible. These radios will comprise a system called the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) and will be based on a common, open standard architecture developed by Industry. The JTRS software communications architecture (SCA) will define the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) architecture. A key component of the JTRS architecture is the ability to distribute computing applications (called resources) among different processes in a virtual computing space. A key focus within this architecture is component interoperability (sometimes called "plug and play"). The JTRS paradigm for this distributed component interoperability requires that the communication between the layers of the generic open system interconnect (OSI) network stack be revisited. For JTRS, this means that the external communication network protocol stack would have to be capable of being distributed within the JTR. The capability to effectively distribute the stack depends on the ability to define an interface and appropriate transport mechanism between the distributed network stack entities. This paper presents the process, rationale and final outcome of a definition for effectively distributing these interfaces within the JTR, taking into account the JTRS Operational Requirements Document (ORD) factors of interoperability, performance, security, and portability.