US Navy, DoD look to expand tactical mesh networks to maritime operations

Guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook transits the Black Sea on 20 April 2014. (US Navy)

The US Navy (USN) and Department of Defense (DoD) are exploring integration of radio frequency (RF)-based mesh networking capabilities to ensure networked communications resiliency, at the systems level, in the face of degraded or denied electromagnetic spectrum environments.

Navy leaders in October selected combat networking company goTenna to leverage its low-bandwidth, secure mesh networking capabilities for the sea service's current combat radio systems. The October contract with Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific to develop the Next-Generation Routing Protocol (NGRP) was a follow-on to an initial research and development (R&D) deal with the company and Naval Information Warfare System Command (NAVWAR) in December 2021, as part of the command's ‘Networks Advanced Naval Technology' (NetANTX) Exercise.

The October deal will have the company migrate its proprietary mesh network control protocols, known as Aspen Grove, into the navy radio systems. The move is part of the sea service's overall combat networking initiative known as Project Overmatch.

“What you are seeing with this [navy] contract … is this is a tactical look at what we can do in a spectrum-denied environment” at a system level, goTenna CEO Ari Schuler told Janes in November.

“We are really doing this piece by piece because that is how the customer wants to do it,”, goTenna chief technical officer Charlie Greenbacker said during the same interview. The Aspen Grove protocols are at the heart of the company's low-bandwidth, secure mesh radio system, dubbed ProX.

Designed to support tactical, small-unit operations, ProX can be paired with mobile phones and use local cellular networks to establish an RF mesh network.