Air Force Striving to Enhance Communications Networks Published Sept. 24, 2008 By Molly Lachance Air Force Office of Scientific Research ARLINGTON, Va. -- Through a joint effort 2 years in the making, the Air Force, Army, and Navy are funding a Finnish research program established to explore new approaches for improving telecommunications network management. The ultimate goal is to build on this basic research in creating a cognitive network that will use rational decision-making methods to enhance the speed and quality of information delivered via Department of Defense networks. Researchers previously introduced this "smart" approach in cognitive radio designs, which sought to improve throughput by capturing the best-available spectrum to meet user communication requirements. The problem with applying the current technology "as is" to network management is that modern communications are too complex for it to work effectively. Researchers anticipate using multiaccess, multimodulation, and (various) multiplexing schemes with heterogeneous network architectures. These networks will not only support multiple product types and ubiquitous services, but will be adaptable to regional spectrum allocation schemes. For a cognitive network to become a reality, researchers must develop new methods, metrics, and intelligent-agent-controlled routers to extend cognitive approaches to full network management. The European Office of Aerospace Research and Development is funding research taking place in Oulu, Finland. The research explores the use of multimodal quality-of-service metrics and negotiated control algorithms to optimize data flow by enabling the intelligent agent to assign priorities among different applications, users, or information.