Migration of U.S. Navy Tactical Networks to the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS)

The mobile user objective system (MUOS) is DoD's next generation military UHF SATCOM system. MUOS is an integrated system that includes an advanced satellite constellation as well as all supporting ground radio access and switching facilities to support the worldwide transport of voice and data. For the last thirty years UHF SATCOM has operated over individual 5-kHz and 25-kHz bandwidth transponders, but MUOS departs from this by adapting a commercial third generation (3G) wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) cellular phone architecture using geosynchronous satellites in place of cell towers. Use of WCDMA allows MUOS to increase UHF communication capacity and availability to a level far in excess of what is currently achievable using the existing UHF SATCOM system. The U.S. Navy utilizes several tactical data networking systems, commonly referred to as information exchange subsystems or "IXS". Each IXS has a unique over-the-air protocol tailored for a specific data networking system. These systems will need to eventually transition from the use of UHF 5-kHz and 25-kHz channel waveforms to the new MUOS WCDMA waveform. The MUOS architecture provides a broad range of voice and data communication services, including a very efficient IP data transport capability, which have the potential to greatly increase the performance of these Navy tactical networks. In this paper the authors briefly explain the MUOS architecture, service and transport classes, QoS, and explore several options for the support of Navy tactical network applications on MUOS