SYSCON 2000 and the DESA Data Relay System

Abstract

The Defense Evaluation Support Activity (DESA) is an independent Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) activity that provides tailored evaluation support to government organizations. DESA provides quick-response support capabilities and performs activities ranging from studies to large-scale field activities that include deployment, instrumentation, site setup, event execution, analysis and report writing. As the applications of computer systems has dramatically increased in recent year a corresponding increased has ocurred in the data processing needs of test orgznization. One client in particular wanted the realtime ability to track the performance of a country-wide communications system. Commercially developed networking software and hardware were employed to facilitate this requirement. To enhance DESA's off range test support capability a DESA system named SYSCON 2000 has been under steady development for the last five years. In particular the ability to use multiple voice grade telephone lines to create a wideband data channel from almost anywhere has been developed and refined. Link flexibility has been enhanced by the use of dedicated, COTS RF spread-spectrum links, cellular telephones, and other transmission media. The current version of SYSCON 2000 supports test director virtual presence via live data displays and video teleconferencing capability.