TDL-Chain: An Intelligent Data Transmission Control System in Tactical Data Link Based on Blockchain

Abstract

Tactical data link (TDL) is a wireless communication system that achieves instant, accurate, automatic, and secure data transmission in military scenarios. It greatly reduces the time of Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action (OODA). Modern TDL systems utilize a distributed architecture to enhance anti-destruction capacity and support data transmission among different TDLs. However, it is difficult to ensure data consistency among TDLs, which greatly reduces joint combat capacities of TDLs. A data transmission control system that can offer data consistency among various TDLs is highly expected. Besides, data transmission in TDLs should be controlled in an automatic and intelligent way to satisfy the low latency requirement of modern wars. To tackle this problem, in this paper, we employ blockchain-based smart contracts to build up a decentralized data transmission control system for TDLs called TDL-Chain. TDL-Chain achieves automatic data transmission and guarantees information consistency among various combat entities. The evaluation based on proof-of-concept implementation demonstrates the effectiveness and efficiency of TDL-Chain.