Group-centric networking: addressing information sharing requirements at the tactical edge

In recent years, there has been a large push in the U.S. Department of Defense to move to an all-IP infrastructure, particularly on the tactical edge. IP and associated protocols were designed primarily for wired networks tied to fixed infrastructure. Although extensions to support MANET have received decades of research, in practice, there are few successful implementations. Challenges include handling mobility, managing lossy links, and scaling to large numbers of users. Unfortunately, these are the exact conditions military tactical edge networks must operate within: high mobility, high loss, and large numbers of users. To address the needs and particular challenges of military tactical edge information sharing requirements, we consider a new class of networking approaches called group-centric networks that focuses on dynamic and resilient formation of interest groups. The structure of tactical networks limits the majority of collaboration and network traffic to within a group of users that share a set of common interests (i.e., platoons, 4-ships, etc.). These groups are formed either prior to the mission or on the fly with only a minor amount of traffic flowing outside of these groups. Group-centric networking approaches can help connect users in military tactical edge networks. In addition, we also discuss an instantiation of a group-centric network protocol called Group Centric Networking (GCN), compare GCN against a traditional MANET routing approach on a 90-node Android mobile phone testbed, and discuss implications for tactical edge users.