An adaptive VHF/UHF system for the next generation tactical MANETs

Tactical mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have a continued growth in bandwidth demand mainly driven by the introduction of new user services and applications. Everything over IP is one of the main requirements of the next generation tactical MANETs. As part of an initial investigation to provide enhanced tactical IP networking capabilities, an adaptive VHF/UHF system that attempts to satisfy the mobility, capacity and adaptability requirements of the new tactical environment was developed. The solution includes a multi-rate Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) VHF/UHF line-of-sight (LOS) radio modem and a fully distributed multi-channel media access protocol that supports integrated voice and data. A description of the two technologies is provided along with the main features and novel functionalities of the system.