NATO STO

The focus in FMN on achieving interoperability so far was mainly on stationary and deployable systems. It is important to investigate if and how the current Core Services can be deployed and made to work on the tactical edge in an FMN context. While the predecessor group IST-150 investigated Message-Oriented Middleware (MOM) Services for Publish/Subscribe and Request/Response, this group will investigate solutions to increase the performance of Communication and Collaboration Services (e.g., Tactical data sharing (including tracks and images), Audio-based Communication Services and Video-based Communication Services), which are part of the Business Support Services below the Core Services in the C3 taxonomy). By enabling this, we can increase the level of future mission interoperability. While some protocols/codecs for audio and video in the tactical domain already are proposed in the Tactical Edge Syndicate in FMN, this group aims to investigate whether the performance and quality of voice and video services can be further increased by use of cross-layer optimizations and artificial intelligence (AI). Edge computing is a part of a distributed computing in which information processing is located close to the edge - where “things” and people produce or consume that information. At the tactical edge, edge computing capacities involves the deployed units taking part in the mission. We aim to investigate AI approaches suited for edge nodes, supporting such user-facing digital-enabled applications as audio and video. Further, we also aim to investigate AI as a means to configure and maintain the tactical platform and communications capacities, including aspects of cross-layer exploits, and distributed resource discovery and management.