Network Working Group V. Cerf
Request for Comments: 1217 CSCR
1 April 1991
Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion Research (CSCR)
1. Introduction
Military requirements place a high premium on ultra-robust systems capable of supporting communication in extremely hostile environments. A major contributing factor in the survivability of systems is a high degree of redundancy. CSCR believes that the system designs offered below exhibit extraordinary redundancy features which should be of great interest to DARPA and the Department of Defense.
2. Jam-Resistant Land Mobile Communications
This system uses a highly redundant optical communication technique to achieve ultra-low, ultra-robust transmission. The basic unit is the M1A1 tank. Each tank is labelled with the number 0 or 1 painted four feet high on the tank turret in yellow, day-glo luminescent paint. Several detection methods are under consideration:
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(b) Wide-area communication by means of overhead reconnaissance satellites which detect the binary signals from the M1A1 mobile system and download this information for processing in special U.S. facilities in the Washington, D.C. area. A Convection Machine [2] system will be used to perform a codebook table look-up to decode the binary message. The decoded message will be relayed by morse-code over a packet meteor burst communications channel to the appropriate Division headquarters.
3. Low Speed Undersea Communication
Using the 16" guns of the Battleship Missouri, a pulse-code modulated message will be transmitted via the Pacific Ocean to the Ames Research Center in California. Using a combination of fixed and towed acoustic hydrophone arrays, the PCM signal will be detected, recorded, enhanced and analyzed both at fixed installations and aboard undersea vessels which have been suitably equipped. An alternative acoustic source is to use M1A1 main battle tanks firing 150 mm H.E. ordnance. It is proposed to conduct tests of this method in the Persian Gulf during the summer of 1991.
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RFC 1217 ULSNET BAA April 1991 4. Jam-Resistant Underwater CommunicationThe ULS system proposed in (2) above has the weakness that it is readily jammed by simple depth charge explosions or other sources of acoustic noise (e.g., Analog Equipment Corporation DUCK-TALK voice synthesizers linked with 3,000 AMP amplifiers). An alternative is to make use of the ultimate in jam resistance: neutrino transmission. For all practical purposes, almost nothing (including several light- years of lead) will stop a neutrino. There is, however, a slight cross-section which can be exploited provided that a cubic mile of sea water is available for observing occasional neutrino-chlorine interactions which produce a detectable photon burst. Thus, we have the basis for a highly effective, extremely low speed communication system for communicating with submarines.
5. Options for Further Reducing Effective Throughput
(a) Anti-Huffman Coding. The most frequent symbol is assigned the longest code, with code lengths reducing with symbol probability.
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(d) Recursive Self-encapsulation. Since it is self-evident that layered communication is a GOOD THING, more layers must be better. It is proposed to recursively encapsulate each of the 7 layers of OSI, yielding a 49 layer communications model. The redundancy and retransmission and flow control achieved by this means should produce an extremely low bandwidth system if, indeed, any information can be transmitted at all. It is proposed that the top level application layer utilize ASN.1 encoded in a 32 bit per character set.
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NOTES