"The changing nature of warfare, where real time communication exchanges are paramount, makes TTNT an important element in conducting future military operations," said Bruce King, Rockwell Collins vice president and general manager of Communications Systems, Government Systems. "This successful demonstration enables DARPA and Rockwell Collins to move much closer to bringing this technology to the warfighter."

The demonstration and testing of TTNT Phase 3 terminals took place Sept. 12-30 at the Naval Air Weapons Station in China Lake, Calif. Fifteen prototype Phase 3 terminals, which were built to fit within the Multifunctional Information Distribution System - Low Volume Terminal (MIDS-LVT) form factor terminals, were used in a multi-platform demonstration to validate the TTNT requirements in a flight demonstration using tactical combat aircraft.

TTNT is the high throughput, low-latency solution for addressing the sensor to shooter link and providing other real-time information. TTNT is an Internet Protocol (IP) based, high-speed, dynamic ad hoc network designed to enable the U.S. military to quickly target moving and time-critical targets. TTNT enables net-centric sensor technologies to correlate information among multiple platforms, precisely locating time-critical targets.

To date, Rockwell Collins has been awarded $55 million for Phase 3/Phase T (Transition) of the program to mature the technology, demonstrate it on operationally relevant aircraft in a MIDS form factor, perform software development to make the TTNT waveform SCA compliant, and perform hardware development tasks to facilitate the transition of TTNT into the Joint Tactical Radio System.

The demonstration validated that TTNT meets several requirements including transmitting 2 Mbps of data over 100 nautical miles in 2 milliseconds; 10 Mbps network capacity; Link 16 compatibility; five-second ingress; high Doppler performance and multi-node, beyond-line-of-sight routing.

Platforms used during testing included the F-15, F/A-18, E2 Hawkeye, Lear 125, T-39, Multi-Mission Command Control aircraft (Paul Revere), a surrogate Combined Air Operations Centre node and three mobile ground nodes.

TTNT is intended to support more than 200 users for secure, jam-resistant transmissions at High Speed Internet throughputs, and to allow reception of four or more receive streams simultaneously.

TTNT is under development for DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory. In 2001, Rockwell Collins was awarded Phase 1 of the program, valued at $1.5 million. This phase included the development of TTNT requirements and a preliminary design of the technology. Phase 2, valued at $6.5 million, included a complete hardware design, full-scale network simulation, and an air-to-ground demonstration that verified the ability to transmit data over 100 nautical miles.

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