Distributed Time Division Multiple Access (DTDMA) - Principles and Analysis Techniques

The principles of Distributed Time Division Multiple Access (DTDMA) technology are delineated. DTDMA is currently being implemented as the U.S. Navy´s Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) in a full scale development program. This effort is under contract to TADCOM, a joint venture of ITT Avionics Division and Hughes Aircraft Company. JTIDS is a spread spectrum system which supports concurrent multi-CNI function (Communication, Navigation and Identification), multi-terminal and multi-net operation. Efficiency, flexibility and high jamming resistance is obtained by utilizing in its design the three ambiguities of signal space: time, frequency and code; and also sharing terminal resources among all of the functions (integrated CNI system). A combined simulation/analytic technique is described which provides design information and predicts terminal capacity and anti-jam performance trade-offs, for both digital data and digital voice data links.