Honolulu, Hawaii, January 26, 2014 – DTRA Research and Development Nuclear Technologies Department (J9NT) and Information Sciences & Applications Department (J9IS), the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL), and Naval Surface Warfare Center-Dahlgren division (NSWC-DD) deployed mature R&D assets in support of the 93rd Civil Support Team (CST) at the 2014 Pro Bowl. J9NT provided significant upgrades to the 93rd CST’s Mobile Field Kit-CBRN (MFK-CBRN) software and radiation detector suite. J9IS deployed tactical, Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) radio technologies to serve as a communications backbone for the 93rd CSTs MFK-CBRN nodes and detectors.

Of the various tactical radio networks experimented with, the Tactical Scalable MANET (TSM) from TrellisWare Technologies, developed for the J9IS Vessel Boarding Inspection System program and MCWL/NSWC-DD, provided the most robust coverage (and with the fewest deployed assets required) at the venue, including non-line-of-sight areas beneath the stadium to a remote operations center four kilometers away within the same network. The TSM network provided complete coverage of the stadium, and was stable and reliable for the duration of the event, despite the large influx of people and wide-scale deployment of television media communication assets. The success of the data network increased the operational availability of situational awareness, sensor monitoring, collaboration (e.g., chat, diagrams, photo images), and mission planning tools available within the MFK-CBRN beyond any previous operational testing.