An Adaptation Layer for the Internet: The “6 M's of Modern Internetworking”

NASA Research Agreement (NRA) NNA16BD84C identified and developed new Internetworking architectures to support secure reliable Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) needs for Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) operating in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace. These studies produced numerous conference publications as well as NASA reports that have been made available in the public domain. Continued work within Boeing and with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and IEEE have provided further shaping. We now consider how the architectures have motivated an Adaptation Layer for the Internet to address the “6 M's of Modern Internetworking”. Future mobile communication services for civil aviation, Unmanned Air Traffic Management (UTM), Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) as well as terrestrial and space transportation will require an enhanced Internetworking architecture to securely address “6 M” services including Multilink, Multinet, Mobility, Multicast, Multihop and MTU Assurance. The Automatic Extended Route Optimization and Overlay Multilink Network Interface (AERO/OMNI) technologies comprehensively address these needs by establishing an ‘adaptation layer’ for the Internet. This paper presents architectural concepts that began under the NASA program and were further shaped by ICAO, IETF, IEEE and Boeing-internal program work. We propose a unified architecture that can address the modern Internetworking needs for all air, land, sea and space mobile device users. The advent of IP parcels and Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) opens further avenues for a more robust, efficient and extensible Internet in both terrestrial and space domains. We finally envision that these technologies will soon become integral components of commercial and tactical public and private domain Internetworks worldwide.