TNT Testbed for Self-Organizing Tactical Networking and Collaboration

Beginning in 2002, a team of Naval Postgraduate School researchers together with sponsors from USSOCOM, and later joined by the OSD and DHS ST Programs, started a new campaign of discovery and constraints analysis experiments Alberts and Hayes, 2007, which is now collectively known as Tactical Network Topology TNT Experiments. This campaign of experimentation, carried out under the USSOCOMNPS Field Experimentation Cooperative program and OSD HLS ST support unfolds in two major areas. The first one involves quarterly field experiments with USSOCOM, in which NPS researchers and students as well as participants from other universities, government organizations, and industry investigate various topics related to tactical networking with sensors and unmanned aerial systems UAS as well collaboration between geographically distributed units with focus on high value target HVT tracking and surveillance missions. The TNT experimentation process with USSOCOM is focused on both technologies associated with networking and the human aspects of networked forms of organization. Technologies investigated have included network-controlled UASs, various forms of multi-platform wireless networking, mesh networked tactical vehicles, deployable operations centers, collaborative technologies, situational awareness systems, multi-agent architectures, and management of sensor-unmanned vehicle-decision maker self-organizing environments.