Date: Jul 21, 2015 Source: SBIR.gov (
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Reliable communication is vital to the warfighter's mission. Historically, the connection between a unit's tactical radio and other end-user devices (EUD) has been a hard wire which is cumbersome and prone to failure, limiting the warfighter's capabilities.
Datasoft Corp., a small business located in Tempe, Arizona developed a tactical radio accessory, SideBridge, and an Android application, Bluelink.
SideBridge provides secure Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity from a tactical IP radio to Android-based devices, while BlueLink provides situational awareness of the tactical network.
DataSoft was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract in 2007 to work with the Air Force to develop a solution. Their approach involved deploying a hierarchy of intelligent agents (IAs) that collect and forward performance data to a central network manager (NM). To reduce monitoring overhead, the IAs are broken into clusters managed by cluster managers (CMs) that report to the NM.
To increase system adaptability, a single IA can change its mode to perform either of these special roles (CM or NM). To maximize efficiency, the IA selectively passes performance
data up the hierarchy, intelligently adapting to network conditions. The system is composed entirely of one piece of software, the intelligent agent, which is deployed on all airborne platforms. In other words, success!
But DataSoft did not stop there. They further enhanced the IA technology, resulting in a tactical radio accessory, named SideBridge, and an Android application, named Bluelink.
SideBridge provides secure Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity from a tactical IP radio (e.g., Multiband Inter/Intra Team Radio, known as MBITR2 or AN/PRC-148B) to Android-based devices
(see Figure 1), while BlueLink provides situational awareness of the tactical network. The SideBridge module has a number of variants -- SB-RR for the Thales Riffleman Radio (AN/PRC-154A), SB-MBITR2 for the Thales MBITR2 radio, and Black and Red side SB-RAP (Radio Access Point) for the Harris AN/PRC-117G radio.
