Investigating the C2 benefits of dynamic and autonomous information prioritization and control over disrupted, intermittent and limited tactical edge networks

A prerequisite for exercising Agile C2, and thereby achieving decision superiority over the adversary, is the effective management of information across tactical networks. This in itself is a highly complex and challenging problem due to the limitations imposed by the Disrupted Intermittent and Limited (DIL) tactical networks and the increasing demands for information placed on those networks.In conjunction with the US Army Research Laboratory, Defence Science and Technology (DST) in Australia is developing an intelligent autonomous software agent, known as SMARTNet, that will attempt to address some of these difficult challenges. The idea behind SMARTNet is to introduce dynamic transformation, prioritisation and dissemination of tactical information based on a current military operational context and a current network state. The first iteration of the middleware, which was developed solely by DST, addresses the important use-case of dynamic prioritisation of Position Location Information (PLI) of friendly forces, in contention with other friendly tactical traffic. This paper outlines current land tactical needs and challenges in the information space and motivates the use of intelligent autonomous information management as a key part of any potential solution. We explore the methodology applied in developing our initial concept demonstrator and the experimentation performed to evaluate the PLI use-case. We present initial findings from the experiments, discuss the implications of these and conclude with recommendations for future work in the SMARTNet program.