The USS George Washington Information System, consisting of 300 stations, is a secure fiber optic local area network based on commercial components. Interest in the Air Force involves an opto-electronic smart node packet switching program aimed at gigabit per second data throughput with packet switching speeds consistent with current ATM standards. An optical time division multiple access interconnect multiprocessor,being developed for local and micro area networks is capable of 5-gigabit per second aggregate data rates with 50 simultaneous channels and bandwidths ultimately to hundreds of gigahertz. Another program has the objective of designing and analyzing an optical interface message processor exploiting the high bandwidth, parallelism and high information density offered by optics. As in the Navy, components for high speed analog communications on fiber are being developed for the specific needs of the Air Force.
Applications are for radio and radar antenna remoting and optical control of phased arrays.
The information on wide-band, fiber optic data links is scattered across the literature and buried in program documents. The state of the art has progressed extensively in the past decade. It is time to capture the accomplishments and establish a baseline for future efforts. In the lead article this quarter, Kent Kogler provides an outstanding summary of the military applications of fiber optic technology. Fiber optic guidance and control is a major technology thrust for the Army.