In this evolving environment, data is the decisive edge. The force that can securely collect, transmit, and act on information fastest will dominate the battlespace. Achieving that requires self-healing networks that can adapt under electronic warfare, scale across services and allies, and maintain resilience from the tactical edge to the enterprise. The Department of Defense’s push toward a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) is accelerating this transformation, demanding greater interoperability and collaboration between industry innovators and military stakeholders.

To explore how these challenges are being addressed in real-world operations, Leslie Hulser, Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy at Persistent Systems, weighs in on how network-centric technologies like the Wave Relay® Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) and Cloud Relay are redefining resilience, interoperability, and mission agility. Hulser’s perspective offers a valuable look into how the defense community can close the data gap, empower joint forces, and realize the full potential of JADC2.

Q: What are the biggest challenges the U.S. military faces in moving data and digital communications across dispersed, joint, and allied units to ensure true interoperability and domain awareness from edge to enterprise?

A: Today’s battlefield demands a true combined, all-domain command and control (C-JADC2) network. However, with long acquisition cycles, designed to deliver single-use solutions, warfighters are provided legacy point-to-point radios that do not deliver a common operating picture, even for single forces.

In distributed operations, these point-to-point systems are inherently fragile. While providing basic connectivity in constrained areas, legacy radios rely on a stovepiped communications architecture. Warfighters experience loss of communications, slow transfer of data, and difficulty getting high volumes of information to reach their intended destination. These challenges all limit situational awareness across echelon, resulting in slower decision-making and reduced operational effectiveness in joint and coalition environments.

To avoid these pitfalls, warfighters require networks that are self-healing, capable of rerouting traffic if a radio fails, and resilient to maintain connectivity in denied or constrained electronic warfare (EW) environments across various domains. No less critical is the need for systems that match the exponential rise in data, knit together the services, and empower warfighters with an unbroken field of situational awareness stretching from the tactical edge to the enterprise.

Q: Given the DoD’s mandate for Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) to prevent vendor lock-in, how can program managers achieve true plug-and-play interoperability across services and allies while maintaining the deep system integration necessary for effective joint operations?

A: The key to a successful MOSA is network-centricity. Serving as the foundational data and digital communications transport layer, the network must be sensor, system, and hardware agnostic. With programs like the F-35 experiencing significant delays and cost overruns, the DoD needs increased industry collaboration that emphasizes competitive innovation in the race to build interoperable technologies. For the past two decades, Persistent Systems has been preparing for the reality of a new battlefield approach where data drives operational dominance.

As a privately held defense-tech company, Persistent Systems’ Wave Relay® Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) enables warfighters to view live video from a drone, retrieve data from a robot, receive orders from a commander, and communicate with all teammates from a single controller, enabling faster decision-making. Operating in a peer-to-peer fashion, Wave Relay has no single point of failure, ensuring continuous connectivity, with each additional node strengthening the network. Where the Wave Relay network stands out is that each node acts as its own router, enabling the intelligent sharing and receiving of data across the fastest possible path.

Persistent Systems’ Cloud Relay capability extends this agility beyond line-of-sight (BLOS), via satellite, internet, and cellular communications to connect distributed operating forces. Built-in security, as demonstrated by our Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) and NIAP validations, ensures the secure flow of classified data and coalition interoperability. For example, American forces in the Indo-Pacific can seamlessly exchange data with allies and American forces in CENTCOM, while protecting sensitive information.

With a transport agnostic network layer, Wave Relay delivers the DoD’s vision of plug-and-play interoperability: scalable, secure, and ready for joint and allied operations.

Q: How has existing commercial technology already proven its ability to deliver resilient communications at the tactical edge across platforms and services, and maintain connectivity and data flow when primary networks were jammed, degraded, or destroyed by near-peer adversaries?

A: Ongoing conflicts have demonstrated that future conflicts will require the joint force to operate in denied, disrupted, and low-bandwidth environments. From intelligence sharing to logistics, today’s operations increasingly depend on high-bandwidth networks. Importantly, China and Russia have shown their abilities to disrupt those networks. To preserve battlefield dominance, our warfighters need resilient systems that can withstand the EW environment and adapt under increasing pressure.

In the Indo-Pacific, Persistent Systems’ Wave Relay has already been tested under real work conditions and proven its worth. At Valiant Shield 2024, we provided a ‘plug-and-play’ solution, connecting Marine units, Air Force strike assets, Navy ships, autonomous systems, digital fires networks, and allied forces. As airmen and Marines were rapidly deployed throughout Hawaii, Guam, and the First Island Chain, data was shared in real time across a unified, flat network that was accessible anywhere by every warfighter on the network. With no additional gear or integration layer, warfighters benefited from a low cognitive and physical burden.

Additionally, Wave Relay MANET is counter–EW tested in active combat operations. Across three days of rigorous tests against sophisticated EW threats, Wave Relay maintained network connectivity within yards of the jammer. A mature technology, proven for the modern battlefield, our Wave Relay and Cloud Relay technologies are engineered with the end-user in mind. Persistent Systems is well equipped to meet the battlefield’s evolving demands and deliver Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).

As the United States plans for a potential conflict with China by 2027, U.S. forces are racing to strengthen coordination across services and allied militaries. With Ukraine, as the most relevant operational proving ground, it’s clear that mobility, which only a MANET can provide, is key to the modern battlefield. One amphibious exercise, which demonstrated a MANET’s mobility, was Valiant Shield 2024. There, American troops, together with partners from Japan, France, and Canada, operated across a sprawling battlespace stretching from Hawaii to Guam and deep into the Pacific island chains. The exercise tested the reality of joint, cross-domain operations: Marine units, Air Force strike assets, Navy ships, autonomous systems, and digital fires networks all had to share data in real time. With the volume and diversity of information, only a true MANET could make this kind of integrated command and control possible. Valiant Shield relied on agile, self-healing networks to stitch together data from hundreds of disparate platforms. Unlike legacy mesh systems, which struggle with contested electromagnetic environments and high-volume traffic, MANET enabled commanders to maintain a common operational picture and synchronize fires across thousands of miles. In exercises designed to simulate the complexity of modern Indo-Pacific warfare, MANET was indispensable.

Mesh Radio Architectures: Fixed Routes, Limited Intelligence

Traditional mesh radio systems rely on a set of radios configured in a fixed routing topology. These systems form networks where each radio acts as a node, and data can hop from one to another. However, mesh radios typically operate on pre-established paths and basic routing logic. They require configuration for each node and often rely on a central controller or static path definitions for traffic routing. This architecture is adequate for low-mobility environments but struggles in dynamic, contested, or rapidly changing operational conditions. An example of this is your home network. Your router doesn’t move, but if the router goes down, all the networked devices in your house also go down. While your mobile devices on the network can move, your router remains static to provide this service.

In essence, a mesh radio is a fixed communications tool, not a network routing device. It provides basic connectivity within a constrained area but lacks the intelligence to dynamically adapt to changing topologies, interference, or the rapid maneuver of units.

Mobile Ad Hoc Networking (MANET): Intelligent, Mission-Driven Networking

In contrast, MANET is a network capability. MANET networks leverage decentralized, self-forming, and self-healing routing protocols that do not rely on preconfigured paths or fixed infrastructure. Put simply, every radio, vehicle, drone, or soldier equipped with a node can automatically find and talk to any other node without needing a base station or a preset map of connections. When one node goes down or moves out of range, the network instantly reroutes traffic through other nodes, so communications stay intact. This means everything – every piece of equipment and every operator – can stay connected while constantly on the move. That flexibility is essential for current and future operational environments.

Key characteristics of a MANET include dynamic routing, resilience, scalability and flexibility, and ease of integration into the mission. Dynamic routing enables the system to automatically detect the best route at each moment in time and adapt to provide the best possible connectivity. This provides resilience to the network which will adapt to loss of a node or environmental disruptions to maintain the network. The MANET must also be scalable to 100’s or 1000’s of nodes without crushing the network – and must remain flexible to external factors. It also must be adaptable to mission requirements by providing different avenues to communicate such as voice, video, location data, sensor data, or other relevant data being ingested by diverse platforms across the network. Bottom line, the MANET has to prioritize the network robustness in all environments to ensure the data gets to where it needs to go.

A Valiant Battle-Proven MANET

While mesh radios offer baseline connectivity, MANET capabilities empower warfighters with true networked maneuver. A true MANET is critical as the Army advances toward its Next-Generation Command and Control (NGC2) vision, the Air Force employs MANET to support distributed operations and agile combat employment (ACE), and the Navy integrates MANET for ship-to-shore and maritime expeditionary communications. Across all services, MANET enhances situational awareness, enables sensor-to-shooter timelines, and ensures resilient data flow in GPS- or SATCOM-denied environments. As NATO also seeks interoperable coalition communications, deploying MANET rather than mesh is a critical distinction. MANET is not just about connecting radios—it’s about enabling joint forces to operate, maneuver, and dominate in contested, communication-degraded environments.

Choosing MANET over mesh radio architecture means choosing a network that thinks, adapts, and survives with the mission. For the warfighter, that difference is decisive.

Persistent Systems LLC is a defense technology firm delivering mission-critical MANET solutions to U.S. and allied forces worldwide.