COTS satellite-terrestrial broadcast system for deployed communications

Abstract

The paper presents a prototype system that demonstrates the joint use of COTS digital video broadcast (DVB) technology and military-grade IP encryption devices for providing high speed networking overlays to terrestrial wide area networks (WAN). The system exploits both satellite and terrestrial versions of the DVB standards to transmit and relay wideband data broadcasts to strategic, deployed and mobile users. Prototyping in this area is motivated by NATO's requirements for a system capable of simultaneously distributing large volumes of information at very high transfer rates to deployed forces. The satellite-terrestrial broadcast system (SBS) makes exclusive use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software, and fully relies on open standards. Military-grade IP encryption devices secure the wideband link for both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint satellite and terrestrial broadcast data transfers. Organic narrowband communications channels are adopted to carry return traffic upstream, under a highly asymmetric network configuration. Asymmetric networking techniques enable end-to-end services between content providers and information consumers over the split path configuration. A terrestrial extension of the system based on digital terrestrial TV technology enables reception of the broadcast streams by mobile users, in both land and maritime environments.