It’s universally accepted that communications are critical for the success of military, law enforcement, and emergency response missions. Voice, text, video, or data are needed to coordinate activities, request assistance, receive important information, and work collaboratively toward achieving the mission.

As discussed previously on The Last Mile, communications aren’t always assured during missions, mainly when operating in austere environments. Operations in rural, remote, or geographically isolated areas may not have access to existing terrestrial communications networks. The existing network infrastructure may be compromised or denied in scenarios like terror attacks or natural disasters. Even densely populated regions like large metropolitan areas can create connectivity challenges if networks are overloaded or operations are taking place underground.

Existing networks are unreliable, unavailable, or denied in all of these scenarios and environments, making it difficult for operators to communicate. This is why, in March of this year, goTenna introduced our new EdgeRelay solution. This semi-permanent relay blankets an area with mobile mesh networking connectivity, augmenting the mesh topology by utilizing physical points of advantage or filling critical gaps in the operational area. By simply placing a goTenna EdgeRelay in an optimal location, operators can ensure communications and information sharing among teams across a wide area of operations.

Since the EdgeRelay was first introduced to the public this year, military, law enforcement, and disaster response professionals have used the EdgeRelay to create ad hoc bubbles of connectivity that enable communications for even the most dangerous and challenging missions. As the networks expanded geographically and operationally, we realized there was still one capability that these operators needed to manage the strategic coverage—the ability to monitor and manage EdgeRelays remotely to ensure nonstop operations and continuous coverage. 

Introducing the goTenna Relay Health Manager

When critical communications devices and infrastructure are deployed for a specific mission, the communications and network professionals who deploy them want to ensure they always work as needed. Considering the importance of comms to the mission, these devices must function without operational gaps to provide mission-critical communications for operators.

In some instances, a deployed EdgeRelay may not be safe, convenient, or practical to access when physically placed at a strategic point of need. Thus, managing a mesh network without a revisit is imperative. 

THE APPLICATION ALLOWS THE NETWORK MANAGER TO SEE THE ENTIRE MESH RELAY NETWORK STATUS AT A GLANCE AND DIVE DOWN DEEPER INTO EACH RELAY TO SEE THE DETAILED OPERATING STATUS.

Military signals teams might deploy an EdgeRelay at high peaks around an area of operation to ensure an extensive network and complete coverage for the area. However, revisiting those high peaks may be difficult or unsafe. In some scenarios, an adversary’s movements or actions could make an EdgeRelay inaccessible.

Wildland fire crews and emergency response personnel may deploy EdgeRelays in an optimal and safe location. However, the unpredictable nature of flood waters, wildfires, and other natural disasters can make those once benign locations too dangerous to access. In some instances, ongoing damage to transportation infrastructure – including bridges and roads – could even make deployed EdgeRelays inaccessible for long periods of time.

For military, law enforcement, and emergency response operations, a deployed EdgeRelay could become difficult or dangerous to access, making it impossible for networks and signals professionals to interact with it. Situations like these are why it’s essential that the health of these critical devices can be monitored and managed remotely.

This is why goTenna developed its Relay Health Manager Application. This standalone application designed for smartphone devices and tablets enables network signals managers and communications professionals to remotely monitor the health and status of relay devices through a convenient and specifically designed interface. The application allows the network manager to see the entire mesh relay network status at a glance and dive down deeper into each relay to see detailed operating status. This ensures that critical communications infrastructure can be monitored and managed, even if those responsible for deploying and maintaining devices can’t access them easily or safely.

The goTenna team is incredibly excited about introducing the Relay Health Manager Application. It’s an incredible innovation that will better ensure operators have access to critical communications when and where they need it. And we know it works because we tested it on ourselves.

A tale of two rodeos

Each year, goTenna attends the Tough Stump Rodeo. This unique and essential event gives military and government decision-makers an opportunity to be “hands-on” with innovative new technologies and see how they perform when they’re called upon in the field. The event is held in a geographically isolated location, which allows technology providers to push their technologies to the limit.

goTenna’s participation in this event goes beyond simply demonstrating our technologies for decision-makers. The organizers and participants rely on our EdgeRelay and goTenna Pro X2 devices to provide necessary communications and connectivity in a location without cellular networks.

THIS YEAR, THE GOTENNA TEAM AT TOUGH STUMP RODEO HAD A NEW TOOL IN THEIR TOOLBOX–THE RELAY HEALTH MANAGER APPLICATION. WITH THIS APPLICATION RUNNING, THE ENTIRE TEAM WAS ABLE TO DEPLOY EDGERELAY DEVICES ONCE AND NOT PHYSICALLY REVISIT THEM DURING THE WHOLE EXERCISE.

In preparation for last year’s Tough Stump Rodeo, the goTenna team deployed five EdgeRelay devices to strategic locations around the area of operations. Many of these locations were chosen because of their height, which gives the EdgeRelays the benefit of line-of-sight, increases their range, and enables us to cover more area.

Unfortunately, many of these five locations were accessible only by what we would call “Jeep roads” – dangerous, unpaved paths that were difficult to traverse. With goTenna’s solutions being relied upon to deliver connectivity for the entire Tough Stump Rodeo exercise and its participants, we couldn’t let the network fail. So, the goTenna team split into three teams of two, and those teams spent the entire day driving from EdgeRelay to EdgeRelay – some as far as an hour and a half away – to ensure they were charged, functioning, and working optimally.

This year, the goTenna team at Tough Stump Rodeo had a new tool in their toolbox—the Relay Health Manager Application. With this application running, the entire team was able to deploy EdgeRelay devices once and not physically revisit them during the whole exercise. Instead, the team remotely monitored the devices’ health and managed the network, ensuring all parties had critical connectivity without having to drive long distances in potentially unsafe conditions.

FOR THOSE OPERATORS WHO REQUIRE SIMULTANEOUS ACCESS TO ATAK AND NEED TO MANAGE SMALLER TACTICAL MESH NETWORKS, WE HAVE ALSO BROUGHT SOME FUNCTIONALITY OF THE RELAY HEALTH MANAGER TO OUR RECENTLY RELEASED V2 ATAK PLUGIN.

With the release of the Relay Health Manager application, all goTenna EdgeRelay device purchases will include the entitlements to run to the Relay Health Checks across the mesh network. The application will also be available as an option for operators who want to manage other goTenna devices set in “relay mode,” including goTenna Pro X2 devices, something we describe as “hasty relays.”

For those operators who require simultaneous access to ATAK and need to manage smaller tactical mesh networks, we have also brought some functionality of the Relay Health Manager to our recently released v2 ATAK plugin. While not a fully immersive view of the network at a glance, it offers the same ability to see and monitor network relays from within ATAK. But, we’ll save more of that story for another day…  

To learn more about the Relay Health Manager Application click HERE.

For more information on the Relay Health Check feature on the ATAK plugin, contact [email protected]