Cross-domain Autonomous Communication Protocol for Delay Tolerant Networks

For complex missions that are away from Earth's resources, there is an unmet need for more autonomous operations with minimal Earth contact. Dynamic, delay and disruption tolerant communications and networking topologies at various Quality of Service levels are needed to meet future mission requirements, which may include multiple spacecraft flying in formation and coordinating among themselves. Additionally, secure proximity- and autonomous-communication among various types of space vehicles are needed to share rich, near real-time streams of information. Along with scalability and extensibility, cybersecurity is a crucial requirement for autonomous communications in space. taraCoAP is based on the terrestrial standard Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) and along with its Cyber-Physical Autonomous Asset Observation and Management extension provides delay and disruption tolerant, autonomous communication among swarms or clusters of spacecraft to implement complex and time-varying networks to coordinate, collaborate and share rich streams of information. Efficient and mission-configurable, taraCoAP runs over the Bundle Protocol, utilizing an advanced Bundle Protocol Security Cipher Suite for secure, interoperable, cross-domain communications.