Electronic protection and routing optimization of MANETs operating in an electronic warfare environment

Domination of the electromagnetic spectrum is a crucial component of the 21st century warfare. In the harsh electromagnetic environment of the modern battlefield, it is of the utmost importance to deny the opposing force the opportunity to attack or exploit the detection/interception of friendly communications assets through the deployment of electronic protection (EP) measures in order to attain low probability of detection (LPD), low probability of interception (LPI) and anti-jam (A/J). Given that directional antennas are a suitable means to achieve both extended range and LPD/LPI, this paper proposes mechanisms to optimize the trade-off between these capabilities, minimizing the number of hops and end-to-end delay when routing packets in a multi-hop ad-hoc network, while taking into account stealth requirements. The novel scheme is based on a variant of Fisheye State Routing, coupled with a power control algorithm to guarantee a LPD/LPI beyond the zone covered by the omni-directional radiation footprint of the network. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated through computer simulation.