Vol. 30, No. 2 (2011)

In the commercial business and personal arenas, advances in wireless and optical communications and Internet Protocol (IP)-based networking have enabled tremendous information-transfer capability and a resulting productivity gain. These gains prompted the government to create a vision of the network-centric warfare and the Global Information Grid (GIG). Although the technologies and lessons learned in the commercial world have direct relevance in realizing this vision, the unique tactical environments pose significant challenges. This special issue of the Technical Digest provides a sample of recent research at APL that addresses some of these critical challenges in communications and networking technologies. It covers both broad and in-depth topics, including APL’s major contributions to satellite communications and networks, interplanetary networking, algorithms and techniques to enhance communication efficiency in challenging tactical environments, network topology control for highly mobile users with limited infrastructure support, and network routing protocols in highly heterogeneous and dynamic networks.