By Bill Stubbs, Jefferson Ahn, and Matt McShea
In modern defense, military platforms do not operate alone. Under the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept, warships operate as a coordinated team, a networked “system of systems” that must share sensor data and coordinate weapon targets in real time. Ships must constantly exchange tactical data across complex, interconnected communication paths.
Testing these multi-platform networks under realistic, contested conditions (like jammed communications or satellite dropouts) is a massive bottleneck. Traditional, hardware-heavy test labs are rigid, expensive, and labor-intensive, which can delay critical software updates to the fleet.
To break this bottleneck, we need software-defined engineering environments. Our work aims to solve this by building dynamic virtual networking directly into IDT’s ATRT Enterprise Platform (AEP). By virtualizing tactical networks, developers can quickly build, test, and validate complex layouts in software, delivering new capabilities to the fleet far faster.
Software-Defined Networking Replaces Rigid, Physical Test Bays
Historically, testing distributed combat systems required static, physical labs. Technicians had to manually plug and unplug wires to change how systems talked to each other, a process that demanded extensive hardware reconfigurations. By implementing Software-Defined Networking (SDN), IDT solutions are designed to replace this manual labor with software control.
Instead of relying on physical hardware, engineering teams build virtual networks controlled entirely by software code. Using a stack of virtual software routers, developers can design network layouts and route simulated traffic automatically.
With this code-driven approach, developers will be able to instantly build, alter, and test multi-ship strike group setups with different communication links (such as satellite, radio, or multi-hop networks). Finding network bottlenecks and routing errors early in development prevents expensive delays when the software is delivered to the fleet.
Connecting Virtual Combat Software with External Simulators
A major challenge in testing interconnected systems is getting virtualized combat software to talk to external simulation tools without IP address conflicts. IDT’s standardized simulation protocols are designed to bridge this gap.
By automatically routing simulation traffic across separate virtual networks (VLANs), we can connect external simulation tools, such as Cisco Modeling Language (CML) nodes or threat generators, directly with virtualized Navy combat software (like Aegis or SSDS).
This setup feeds a shared, simulated threat picture to the virtual combat system in real time. Analysts can verify that the tactical software handles high-stress scenarios correctly, generating objective quality evidence (OQE) without altering the native weapon code or taking physical ships offline.
Centralized Routing and Unified Visibility
Managing a complex virtual network requires a centralized control system. Without it, developers are forced to manually set up and coordinate separate test environments, slowing down analysis.
Our centralized Route Manager and Route Operator software will solve this by automatically setting up and connecting these environments. This architecture pulls all metrics, automated analysis tools, and screen displays into a single, unified workstation.
The “single pane of glass” view this provides allows analysts to monitor, troubleshoot, and control complex exercises from a single screen. Making these engineering tools easy to use and centrally managed is just as important as the virtualization technology itself.
Enabling Joint All-Domain Command and Control
Dynamic virtual networking transforms how we test military software. It elevates virtual test beds from simple, single-system testing tools into complex environments that mirror real-world joint operations. By combining software-defined networks with automated testing, we give developers flexible digital environments to build and refine software. Ultimately, this approach will cut integration costs, remove schedule risks, and deliver validated, reliable code to the tactical edge at the speed of relevance.
Bill Stubbs, Jefferson Ahn, and Matt McShea are systems and virtualization engineers specializing in digital engineering and automated networking solutions at Innovative Defense Technologies (IDT). They design and build secure, software-defined environments that enable the rapid integration, testing, and validation of multi-platform tactical systems.