Gateway-to-Gateway Protocol Issues in a Tactical Environment

Communication networks for future tactical deployments are required to be survivable against the expected physical, electronic, and environmental threats. To provide survivability to these systems, new distributed architectures must be developed. Within these new architectures there will be a heterogeneous mix of networks, bridges, gateways, communications media, and other hardware. In this environment protocols will be necessary to communicate information which is pertinent to routing and connectivity between gateways. This paper discusses enhancements to current gateway-to-gateway protocols which could be necessary in future tactical environments.