Today's naval vessels use multiple IP based transmission systems for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communications. Ship-to-ship communications systems enable both direct communications within a line-of-sight (LOS) network and ship-to-shore communications over long distances (beyond line-of-sight, BLOS).
Not only are more and more services being integrated into the naval vessels of tomorrow, but an increasing number of those services are IP based rather than relying on serial technology. The number of parallel IP systems on board is rising in absolute terms, while serial services are increasingly seen primarily as a backup solution. At the same time, both the load on individual systems and data volumes are continuously increasing. Users already have ever higher expectations for access speed and security.
What all this means is that the naval vessels of tomorrow have meet these requirements in the near future with the systems of today.
A high-performance system that allows users to control the dynamics and concurrent use of all IP transmission systems while also taking into account the quality of service (QoS) on ships is not only highly relevant to today's naval vessels but is even more vital for those of the future.
The IP Management System from Rohde & Schwarz offers users the following:
The German Navy successfully tested the prototype in May 2023, laying the foundation for future naval deployment scenarios.
A traffic flow control system that adaptively distributes traffic between available transmission systems (load balancing) is required to optimize workload and ensure available capacities are used efficiently. This can compensate for peak loads in the communications system.
QoS scheduling can then prioritize different services assigned to the same transmission system in such a way that all traffic flows can be exchanged with as little deviation as possible. Load balancer instances optimize the distribution of workloads and to keep capacity at the best possible level.
Multiple IP based transmission systems can be used simultaneously by allocating traffic flows that take QoS requirements into account. QoS scheduling allows users to prioritize different services assigned to the same transmission system so that all traffic flows can be exchanged with as little impact as possible on overall service.
The quality of service of the various connected transmission systems is recognized and taken into account when the load balancer makes planning decisions. The optimization system for load balancing and WAN supports a load balancing approach with QoS support in the classified and unclassified, or public, domains where the load balancing instance (traffic flow control) of IP management is located.
The traffic flow controller can account for QoS traffic flow classification from classified domains within the QoS scheduler located in the unclassified/public domain, even though traffic flow and its QoS classification are encrypted in the unclassified domain. This is a major achievement because it means that information exchange between the classified and unclassified security domains is neither possible nor necessary.
Compressing classified data traffic (before encryption) ensures optimal use of the available IP based data rate through the various transmission systems.
Support for brownout scenarios (i.e. partial but not total transmission system failure) is provided by seamlessly transferring current traffic flow to another transmission system if the transmission system currently in use fails.
Traffic between transmission systems can be allocated differently by the load balancer in the public domain according to the QoS requirements of the services within the classified security domain.
