Tactical Data Links

Ferhat Yalcin

Chief Scientific AssistantCAT2 , NC3A

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AGENDA OF THE PRESENTATION (~20 Minutes)

To introduce ourselves and capabilities

Our TITO Based Prototypes

Our SOA Based Prototypes

Some of US / NATO trials related to TDL

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Who are we ?

A subgroup of 8 -10 engineers of Interoperability division. NC3A (CAT2)

Working in the area of Tactical Data Links , Text based(AdatP-3, OTH-Gold ,etc) , XML based (NFFI ,etc ) , binary (Link16 , Link11 ,etc)

What do we do ?

Requirements capturing / documenting & specifications development (Recently , Developed DAMA (Defense Anti Mortar Attack TDL Technical Note , XML based)

(via ) Prototype development

(via) Deployment of the prototype to NATO exercises , workshops and trials with some other systems (then ,update documents with feedbacks and lessons learned)

SOA (NNEC) based solutions development and testing for TDLs and Information exchange(Currently developing NATO metadata registry and repository federation specification ) NATO UNCLASSIFIED3

Some of our prototypes & tools

SOA based prototypes

TIES (TITO Information Exchange Service) NMRR (NATO Meta Data Registry & Repository )

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TITO Based prototypes

NIRIS (Interoperable Real-time Information Services) TITO ( TDL-in, TDL-out) API OANT TDL VIEWER RECORDING MANAGER SERIAL PORT MANAGER SERVER WAN GUI NSCD (NATO Simple Compliant Device) JRE ( Joint Range Extension ) IEG- FS (Information Exchange Gateway - Functional Services)

Our TITO Based Prototypes

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NIRIS (Interoperable Real-time Information Services) TITO ( TDL-in, TDL-out) API

• TITO is an application programmer's interface (API) which can be used by third-party applications to receive the data fields of the data links and to allow applications to generate STANAG-compliant tactical data link messages from their data.

• If you have a Java application for example , you can use NATO NIRIS API to create a socket that listens a specific port in a LAN and receives and scans Link 16 ,etc messages.

• Why is it powerful ?

1. Hand-coding of the 3000 or so tactical data link message fields is a long and error-prone process. NIRIS 3 therefore used a state-of-the-art automatic process. This process involved several steps: the written STANAG was first converted into a XML representation ; and the XML STANAG was then automatically converted into the Java code, Java tests and HTML documentation using the XSLT (extensible stylesheet language transformations) processing language. Of course, parts of each STANAG contained ambiguities that needed human input to resolve, but the vast majority of the code was auto-generated leaving the human programmer only the task of solving the interesting problems.

2. Developed and tested during many NATO exercises, trials , workshops with different national systems .Probably very less systems have been tested that much with a huge variety of different systems.

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Automatically generated HTML documentation of a STANAG . By clicking , you go into more detail levels (for example , from message to sets , from sets to fields ,etc) (See above)

All STANAG is converted into an XML file. This is the main input for Java code , unit test and documentation generation. If NIRIS supports a TDL , it always supports all of the messages in the STANAG . For example all 300 messages in AdatP-3 , all Link 16 messages in different versions(ed3,ed4,ed5) are supported. (See above) NATO UNCLASSIFIED7

NATO Real-Time Data Exchange After NIRIS

… and then adds support for every major TDL format ( C2 system can then display JOINT COMMON OPERATIONAL PICTURE)

NATOWAN

Link-16

Link-11B

OTH-Gold

FriendlyForceTracking

ASTERIX

VMF

Air C2 Maritime C2

Land C2

SOF C2

AWCIES

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OANT TDL VIEWER

• A Graphical User Interface application

• OANT TDL Viewer is the tool that is used for verifying and validating the TDL output of different systems compliance with the STANAGs .It has also a decoder that lets the TDL messages data to be displayed as human readable format .

Some of the supported TDLS.

TDL Message decoded and verified

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RECORDING AND REPLAYING (TDL Messages )

• For further analysis and testing purposes , TDL messages can be recorded and replayed with different speeds during an exercise

• Used during CWID 2009 to examine all recordings in our NATO SECRET lab.

Recording Manager GUI

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SERIAL PORT MANAGER

• The Serial Port Manager (SPM) is in charge of transmitting and receiving messagestreams from serial interfaces (as used by the traditional modems) to and from the LAN (Local Area Network).

• The main use of the SPM is to broadcast data feeds that arrive from TDL systems .If there are different LANS ,to broadcast all the messages produced in one LAN to the other LANs , you can use (SPM) in order to work as a relay; forward all the traffic to the other participating LANS. (MAJIIC 2009 exercise)

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NIRIS SERVER – WANGUI

• NIRIS Server provides real time configuration and statistics on all the functionality of the NIRIS components (like recording manager , serial port manager) through a web browser called the WAN-GUI.

• On access to the WAN-GUI the user has to authenticate himself. After that the user can select to view or update the configuration of all available Managers. Whether a user can change a specific aspect depends on the role that was assigned to this user. Furthermore the statistics for all available Managers can be shown to monitor the working of the Manager and troubleshoot problems.

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NSCD (NATO SIMPLE COMPLIANT DEVICE)

• The NSCD reads the recognised TDL data from a STANAG-5602 compliant Local Area Network (LAN)/WAN TCP/IP port of a remote node. Then it unpacks the data, translates the network format into SIMPLE, and converts it into Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) packets for onward transmission over the SIMPLE network, which can be either via encrypted telephone lines or the IP-based CFBL network. TDL data can now be forwarded to any place that has connectivity to this WAN.

• NSCD is mainly used as a router during exercises. All participant platforms from different nations connect to NSCD WAN (mostly via CFBL net) . When a platform sends a message to NSCD , this message is forwarded to all other participants in the WAN. And all other participants verify this message.

A sample NSCD WAN participants’ interconnection diagram

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JRE – JOINT RANGE EXTENSION

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JRE provides a foundation for Joint Range Extension of Link 16 and other tactical data links (TDLs) to overcome the line-of-sight (LOS) limitations of radio terminals, such as Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) and Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS). It uses a variety of secure media, including satellite communications, telephones and Internet protocols to essentially extend the coverage area beyond the line of sight.

JRE was developed to function much like a router commonly used in home and business computer networks.

JRE gathers information between the various air, ground and maritime forces operating in a given area and routes that information across the different data links, effectively creating a wide-area network. It also takes information and transmits it to other routers, linking together other networks much in the same way the Internet links the entire globe.

NIRIS JRE Processor General Characteristics

MIL-STD 3011 Appendix C complaint. Messages structure and Data dictionary defined in XML. Automatic generation of source code, documentation and Unit test from XML

representation. Platform Independent (written in Java). Easy to expand (Others TDLs and Transmission media). Reliable and highly available. User friendly.

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JRE NIRIS Processor in the deployed environment

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LAN

LAN

LINK 16NETWORK

LINK 16NETWORK

Nato SecretWAN

OWL

ICC

OWL

ICC

JREAP

JREAP

Joint Range ExtensionProcessor

Joint Range ExtensionProcessor

SIMPLE

SIMPLE

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IEG- FS (Information Exchange Gateway - Functional Services)

• NATO has introduced the concept of the Information Exchange Gateway (IEG - FS) to improve and enable cross security domain interoperability for functional services.

• It enables us to exchange information between different classified networks , for example from NATO classified to National network or vice versa .

• Based on configuration files (labeller.xml and sanitizer.xml), a part of a TDL message that is defined as classified (for NATO or for a Nation) can be removed/set to zero and the TDL message can be recomposed without the classified data before it is send.

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IEG - FS

NATIONALSECRET Domain

NATO Secret Domain

NS BPD

OANT

NIRIS replay

IEG FS proxy

OANT

ICC

FileToSMTPTool

SMTPToFileTool

ADatP-3 Baseline 11C (All 300 Msgs) / 11F(All 10 Msgs) and Link 16 , Link 11, Link , OTG Protocols

NATO Domain -Nation Domain Demonstration

ADatP-3 ACO (Baseline 11C)Link 16 J3.2 (Edition 3)Link 11 M2Link 1 S.5OTG Gold(Contact Report) 16

A figure from the trial with Italy . 6-7 different Italian systems received TDL from NATO classified domain after NATO classified fields were removed

Our SOA (NNEC) Based Prototypes

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TIES (TITO Information Exchange Service)

• TIES is the way to access information available from NIRIS TITO via web services. It is a (Tactical) Data Link information provider service with an underlying SOA approach.

• TIES design :

The TIES module will start its own Trackstore(s) from which it will serve the information. It will be started similar to the other components (managers, servers) via a script and will use a number of configuration files. In these files , it is specified which data to make available (port numbers, wrapper formats, etc) and via which web-service interfaces (TIDE, TIDE2, STGP, etc).

TIES architecture

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NMRR (NATO METADATA REGISTRY AND REPOSITORY )

• We are moving to NNEC architectures and using XML , XSD , WSDL ,etc more and more everyday .Within the NATO , metadata management is identified as an important service for the realization of net-centric environment where information is visible and accessible for users.

• We need to store XML based metadata files in a registry and repository that should be available to authorized users and applications.

• Our group has developed the NMRR prototype software which is a web based User Interface application. Users can browse/search registered xml artifacts from a web browser after they are logged in and authenticated.

• Currently we are working on machine-machine interface for our NMRR especially secure SOAP messaging.

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User Current NMRR

NATO Metadata Reg&Rep

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NATO Classified

NATION Metadata Reg&Rep

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NMRR (NATO METADATA REGISTRY AND REPOSITORY )

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Some of US / NATO trials related to TDL and information Exchange

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TDLITS – US is the test manager , Link16 interoperability testing

MAJIIC - Exchange of ISR information between NATO nations

ICC – TBMCS MTF message exchange via IEG – FS

Link 16 shared early warning information exchange through JREAP (US GCCS system)

US – ONIR system (TBM) plots displayed on ICC those are processed by NIRIS (not live – via recording)

Summary

• I have tried to summarize some of our prototypes / capabilities and some US/NATO related trials.

• I have some of our software ready for demonstration in my laptop . If anyone is interested in , I can demonstrate it where available. After this presentation ,please feel free to asks questions to me about the details .

• Based on our prototypes and capabilities , we are very much interested in working together with US . We think that both US and NATO can benefit from it , especially in the field of TDL and information exchange .

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