Cooperative Team Communications

Motivated by the operational need of eliminating the potential Single Point of Failure (SPOF) of a communications network, a Cooperative Team Communication (CTC) approach is proposed for distributed, wireless sensor and team networks. We assume that the communication system uses a spread spectrum waveform, and each radio implements the Rake processing capability to combat channel fading effects. The CTC approach uses the team-to-team (i.e., many-to-many) configuration that makes two-way communications possible between two distant teams without dedicated long-haul gateways. With the CTC capability, a team would be able to cooperatively communicate with a distant team at a greater range, while it would be impossible when the radios operate individually. Equivalently, with CTC capability, a team would be able to cooperatively communicate with a distant team at a minimal power level for covert, energy-efficient, or high-throughput operations. The potential applications of the CTC approach would be energy-efficient communications, range extension, virtual gateways, covert communications, remote sensing, etc.