AN designers must also address the necessary implementation of information assurance safeguards and their integration with network management (NM) tools, and these considerations differ significantly with respect to the AN versus traditional ground-based networks. The internetworked AN requires an interdisciplinary approach to developing creative threat assessments so that network engineers can determine workable security overlays, both for existing functional systems and for the integrated security demands of next-generation systems. Additional network design concerns include capabilities such as scalable key management, cross-domain security, timely authentication, network access control, and intrusion detection, and this functionality will require the AN’s tight coupling with associated NM capabilities. Highly mobile, high-speed, and ad hoc NM entails a number of aspects that warrant investigation, such as the volume and flow of NM traffic; AN policy-based networking; manageable end-to-end, mission-based quality of service; predictive network planning; dynamic bandwidth management; and usable, onboard NM graphical user interfaces for airborne operators.

Inarguably, the airborne extension of the GIG presents unique networking problems that are further complicated by a variety of nontechnical constraints, and it may thus take many years for industry, academia, and government scientists to find applicable solutions. Fortunately, time is not currently a factor, as the goal for achieving a comprehensive AN deployment extends well into the next decade. As a means of advancing the technology needed to cultivate this next networking frontier, AFRL plans to continue hosting the annual Airborne Network Technology Review Days event, which attracted 230 attendees from more than 25 companies in its first year. The ultimate goal is to build a seamless, airborne, networkcentric environment that brings relevant and timely information—and therefore, battlefield dominance—directly to the tip of the spear.

Capt Eugene D. Turnbaugh, of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Information Directorate, wrote this article. For more information, contact TECH CONNECT at (800) 203-6451 or place a request at http://www.afrl.af.mil/techconn_index.asp. Reference document IF-H-05-19.