Isode’s Role at Excercise Trident Sprint

What is the Trident Sprint Exercise?

The Trident Sprint Exercise was a collaboration of Industry and Navy Digital (Marworks) to demonstrate how current and emerging technology can enhance the Royal Navy’s capability. It was hosted by the Royal Navy RMB Chivenor in Devon. Over the course of two weeks, it was shown how off-the-shelf equipment can be used on the front line of military operations.

The focus of the sprint was to improve digital foundations used by the Royal Navy as it looks to become a hybrid force. This meant the testing of uncrewed platforms (such as USVs and drones), autonomous systems, and advanced communications technologies to improve the Royal Navy’s digital and information warfare capabilities.

A key objective of this exercise was to enable operations in disrupted, degraded, intermittent, low-bandwidth (DDIL) environments, allowing the Royal Navy to operate effectively without satellite connectivity. This is where we played a vital role.

Isode’s Role

Our participation involved enabling the HF communications capability with our STANAG 5066 server, Icon-5066, connected to Codan SENTRY-H 6120-BM radios, to provide baseline data communication over HF Radio, giving resilience and application multiplexing. Five nodes were connected, representing ships using HF Surface Wave communications using STANAG 5066 Wireless Token Ring Protocol (WTRP) that enables multiple nodes to fairly share a single HF channel.  The baseline setup for each node involved:

• Codan SENTRY-H 6120-BM radios for reliable HF communication.
• Isode Icon-5066: Our STANAG-5066 server enables applications to work efficiently over HF modems/radios and allows multiple applications to work simultaneously.

Two applications were run over this infrastructure. The first was chat using the NATO XMPP standard (JChat).

• WinTAK Client: Open Source C2 client, with built-in XMPP capability.
• Isode M-Link MU Server: Usually deployed on a mobile unit (such as an aircraft or naval vessel), the M-Link MU Server supports local clients using the standard XMPP Client/Server protocol, allowing for the use of any standards-compliant XMPP client in constrained network situations.

The second application was C2 tracking. The C2 capability was provided by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) TRAX, that provides exchange and protocol conversion of C2 protocols. C2 status was displayed with WinTAK, using an SNC plugin. Transfer of C2 data over HF was provided by our HF Performance Enhancing Proxy, Icon-PEP. The configuration showed that C2 data can be reliably transferred over slow and high-latency HF links

• Sierra Nevada Corporation TRAX: a command-and-control (C2) gateway software that connects different military systems, networks, and sensors so they can share data in real time.
• WinTAK Client: a Windows-based situational awareness and mission management app used by the military and first responders, which provides real time mapping, tracking, communication, and collaboration by connecting users through the TAK (Team Awareness Kit) network.
• Isode Icon-PEP: Enables the deployment of IP applications over HF radio using a STANAG 5066 link layer. It supports IP packet switching and provides optimised support for TCP applications, such as web browsing and Command and Control (C2), using a Performance Enhancing Proxy (PEP).