SBIR-STTR Award

The SOLUTE team’s Phase I technical approach consists primarily of a feasibility study assessing the viability of a Navy implementation of the algorithms, standards, and protocols that comprise Google's Wave technology. Of specific concern is Wave’s ability to handle varying bandwidth and DIL communications channels associated with Navy platforms. While computer science research in the field of operational transform theory points positively toward a viable Navy implementation of the Wave Federation Protocol, detailed examination of the specific algorithms in collaboration with Wave project engineers at Google is required. Phase I includes assessment of Wave’s capability to fully handle the functionalities and capabilities required by Navy C2 needs. Our research will investigate this from a general perspective, conducting a thorough analysis of baseline functionality requirements for web-based applications. Additionally, our research will specifically explore wave gadgets and robots for supporting rich collaborative mapping and rich collaborative chat applications. Lastly, the Wave client in its current form neglects robust security measures. This research will include identification of minimum security and role based permissions required to support the Navy C2 hierarchy.

Keywords:
Google Wave, Google Wave, Federated Collaboration, Chat, Planning, Knowledge Management, Assessment, Navy Command And Control, Execution

In Phase II, Solute Consulting will produce a prototype robust collaboration capability for Navy Command and Control, Navy Wave 0x9D with the following technical objectives: 1 - Implement and demonstrate a federated, multi-server, Navy Wave prototype, 2 - Simulate Disconnected, Intermittent, and Limited (DIL) network connectivity issues, and demonstrate the ability to adapt to these conditions, without losing critical messages, 3 Develop and/or integrate examples of mockups of likely C2 tools and processes using Wave Robot and Gadget interfaces, 4 - Develop enabling web pages, processes, and organizational tools to facilitate interest in, discovering in, and publishing knowledge as Waves, 5 Develop security enhancements. This effort is centered on the development of a prototype with capabilities to handle a specific Cyber Attack 0x9D use case as selected by the project sponsor. Phase II includes development of a DIL environment model. The prototype will demonstrate the capability operate in the DIL environment.

Benefit:
Wave technology was concepted with the commercial web in mind where there is high bandwidth and persistent connections. Wave technology cannot be directly applied to the DIL environment that the Navy operates in. The result of this effort will be wave technology that can be implemented Navy DIL environment. Additionally, wave infrastructure elements developed for the prototype use case will largely be re-usable for additional operational use cases. Commercial Applications Not all non-military internet environments consist of high bandwidth and persistent connections. The DIL survivable wave technology that results of this project will be useful in disconnected non-military network environments. Additionally, collaboration non-textual data models is also highly prevalent in commercial application which would benefit from the results of this project.

Keywords:
Chat, GCCS-M, C2RPC, Collaboration, Command and Control, Operational Transform, Wave, disconnected systems