Bae Systems, Inc.

Peter Noble Hudson

Rania Hamdi Eissa

Monadl Abd Al-Abbas Mansour Al-Ameri

Roderick Buchanan

Harry John Finn

Alan Manuel Cullen

James Graham Fountain

Christopher Mark Dearlove

Monadl Al-Abbas Mansour Al-Ameri

An emissions management module for a mission management system of a moving platform, said emissions management module being configured to: &#x2014;obtain attribute data representative of (i) prevailing emissions control parameters in the form of an emissions control region defined by the relative locations of said platform and another node; and (ii) a direction of said emissions control region with respect to said platform; &#x2014;generate, using said attribute data, an emissions plan that complies with restrictions defined by said emissions control parameters, and includes at least an emissions limit defining: a) a maximum transmission power permitted to be utilised by an on-board antenna or portion of aperture antenna in a specified direction relative to said moving platform; and/or b) permissible antenna waveforms and/or a specified maximum emissions duration in said specified direction relative to said moving platform; and/or c) permitted or restricted usage of on-board sensors in a specified direction relative to said moving platform.

Apparatus and method for communications management

A data transfer method and system includes at least one switch device () configured, in use, to transfer data, directly or indirectly, between a plurality of computing devices (). The at least one switch device is configured to provide a plurality of Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN), each said VLAN being configured as a Virtual Channel (VC) by receiving data from a said computing device designated as a sole source of data over the VC. The VC data is transmitted from the sole source computing device as Ethernet frames () tagged with a VLAN tag (). The VCs are routed through the at least one switch device according to a VLAN Id field of the VLAN tag of a said frame, with fixed and pre-determined routing of the frame being determined by configuration of the at least one switch device.

Data transfer

Apparatus for a communications system of a moving platform comprising a plurality of systems, at least one platform application, and a communications module comprising at least one wireless communications link and configured to effect wireless data communication, wherein said apparatus comprises a communications planning module configured to: &#x2014;receive data representative of a communications requirement between said platform and a recipient node; &#x2014;identify a communications link for supporting said communications requirement; &#x2014;determine, using attribute data representative of a position and/or orientation of said platform relative to said recipient node, a distance and direction of said recipient node with respect to said platform; &#x2014;receive data representative of prevailing emissions control restrictions including an upper emissions limit defining a maximum transmission power permitted N to be utilized by an on-board antenna or portion of aperture antenna; &#x2014;determine a best achievable transmission power, within said upper emissions limit, of said identified communications link taking into account at least said distance of said recipient node with respect to said platform; and &#x2014;cause the transmission power of said identified communications link to be set to said best achievable transmission power.

Transmission power control based on position of moving platform and prevailing emission restrictions

Apparatus for generating a connectivity map in respect of a communications system of a moving platform, said communications system comprising at least one platform application and being configured to effect wireless data communication between said platform and another node by means of one of a plurality of supported communications links in accordance with a communications plan, wherein said apparatus is configured to: &#x2014;identify () a message or set of messages required to be transmitted from or received by said moving platform; &#x2014;generate a connectivity map comprising a plurality of connectivity metrics by, for each of a plurality of different specified attitudes or orientations derived from one or more predicted trajectories of said moving platform: &#x2014;identifying available transmitters for wireless transmission of said message or set of messages and/or identify available receivers for wireless reception of said message or set of messages; &#x2014;for each identified transmitter, determining () a transmitter metric and/or for each identified receiver, determining () a receiver metric; and &#x2014;defining () a connectivity metric, based on said transmitter metrics and/or receiver metrics for said respective specified attitude or orientation, said connectivity metric being representative of a quality of a respective associated communications link for effecting transmission or reception by said platform of said message or set of messages in respect of said respective specified attitude or orientation of said moving platform.

Apparatus for management of communications resources of a moving platform comprising a communications system configured to effect wireless data communication between the moving platform and a recipient node, the communications resources comprising a plurality of wireless communications links for facilitating the wireless data communication and a plurality of antennas associated therewith, the apparatus comprising an antenna analysis and selection module residing with the communications system and configured to:

Apparatus for on-board management of communications in a mobile node comprising a communications system configured to effect wireless data communication between the mobile node and another node by means of at least one supported wireless communications link, wherein the apparatus comprises a node manoeuvre planning module and a dynamic route planner; the node manoeuvre planning module being configured to:

Apparatus for communications management in a communications system of a moving platform comprising a plurality of systems and/or functions and at least one platform application, the communications system comprising at least one transmitter for transmitting data received from the at least one platform application and being configured to effect wireless data communication thereof by means of one of a plurality of supported communications links, wherein the apparatus comprises a data management module configured to:

Apparatus for communications management in respect of a moving platform having a dynamic planner () configured to generate a communications plan utilising one or more of a plurality of communications planning strategies, at least one platform application (, FIG.), and a communications system () configured to effect wireless data communication of data received from a platform application by means of one or more supported communications links in accordance with said communications plan, wherein said apparatus comprises an interface function between said dynamic planner () and said communications system (), said interface function including a communications executive module () and a communications management module (), said communications executive module () being configured to receive, from said communications system (), condition data representative of a prevailing situational and/or environmental condition affecting a current communications plan during mission execution, generate re-plan request data and transmit said re-plan request data to said communications management module (); said communications management module () being configured to generate plan request data in response to said re-plan request data and transmit said plan request data to said dynamic planner (), said plan request data being configured to cause said dynamic planner () to generate a revised communications plan and transmit said revised communications plan to said communications system (), wherein said plan request data is generated by said communications management module () by selecting a strategy from said plurality of communications planning strategies, based at least on said condition data, and generating said plan request data including data representative of said selected strategy.

Apparatus for management of communications resources of a moving platform comprising an on-board communications system configured to effect wireless data communication between said moving platform and another node, said communications resources comprising a plurality of wireless communications links and a plurality of antennas associated therewith, the apparatus comprising an antenna analysis and selection module residing with said communications system and configured to: &#x2014;receive, during a mission from one or more systems/subsystems and/or functions of said moving platform, attribute data representative of said emissions control criteria, said attribute data comprising (i) location data representative of a specified emissions control region, and/or (ii) position and/or attitude and/or velocity data representative of an adversary node defining an emissions control region; &#x2014;determine, using said attribute data and based on said emissions control criteria, suitability of one or more on-board antennas and/or portions of aperture antenna for supporting said communications requirement; &#x2014;for each of a plurality of antennas/portions of aperture antenna determined to be suitable for supporting said communications requirement based on said emissions control criteria, determine a quality metric, said quality metric being indicative of a respective performance criterion; and&#x2014;select one or more of said suitable antennas/portion of aperture antenna having a highest performance criterion, for facilitating said communications requirement.

A method and apparatus for use in an ad hoc network, comprising: a node transmitting an extended allowable hold time value to a further node; the node changing its transmission behavior such that the further node stops receiving transmission from the node for an extended period, for example by pausing transmission at least in the direction of the further node; and the further node treating the link to the node as intact during the extended allowable hold time. The transmitting of the extended allowable hold time value may be performed earlier than a next routine transmission of routine allowable hold time value would have been sent. The method may further comprise the node being instructed to maintain topology information for an extended time.

Ad hoc network with unidirectional link

A method and apparatus for performing surveillance comprising: imaging, at a first frame rate, an area () to produce images; detecting, using the images, a feature of interest () within the area (); determining a region of interest (), the region of interest () corresponding to a region within the area () in which the feature of interest () will be located at a later time-step; and, at the later time-step, using the region of interest (), imaging the area () such that images of the region within the area () in which the feature of interest () is located are produced at a second frame rate, while images of the rest of the area () are produced at a third frame rate, the second rate being different to the third rate.

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Preston, United Kingdom

Peter Noble Hudson