An Approach to Implementing the Line Seize Protocol in Military Fiber Optics Networks

The Line Seize Protocol is capable of providing the high performance demanded by sophisticated distributed C³ Battle Management systems. Force status and sensor data must be promptly collected and delivered to command centers where command decisions must be reached and resulting command delivered with minimum delay. Since these systems must operate in highly stressed environments, provision must be made for cooperative and synchronous interfacing with back-up systems, graceful degradation, adaptability to changing network topology, and communications security. This protocol provides several advantages that are important in military applications. In particular, a message will always follow the shortest existing path between a source-destination pair of nodes. Moreover, routing decisions, message collisions and queueing delays are eliminated. In addition, since all nodes, including command nodes, receive every message, complete distributed control of the system is possible. When the high data rates and inherent survivability of FO transmission systems are combined with the Line Seize Protocol, the result is a robust, high performance communication system that has potential applications to both tactical and strategic C³/Battle Management systems. An approach to implementing the Line Seize Protocol in a hybrid FO/Radio network is presented and the resulting performance is described parametrically in terms of system requirements. This involves discussion of EDAC, COMSEC, and jamming protection procedures, Line Seize Modem design, and nodal architecture.