Officials from the Air Force, Army and Navy are now funding a Finnish research program that explores new approaches for improving telecommunications network management.

The ultimate goal is to build on this basic research and create a cognitive network that will use rational decision-making methods to improve the speed and quality of information delivered via Defense Department networks.

Researchers previously introduced this "smart" approach in cognitive radio designs, which sought to improve throughput by capturing the best available spectrum to meet user communication requirements.

The problem with applying the current technology as-is to network management is that modern communications are too complex for it to work effectively.

"We anticipate using multiple accesses, multiple modulations and various multiplexing schemes with heterogeneous network architectures," said Dr. Paul Losiewicz, a program manager at the European Office of Aerospace Research and Development, a branch of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

"These networks will support multiple product types and ubiquitous services in addition to adaptability to regional spectrum allocation schemes."

For a cognitive network to become a reality, researchers must develop new methods, metrics and intelligent-agent controlled routers to extend cognitive approaches to full network management.

The European Office of Aerospace Research and Development-funded research taking place in Oulu, Finland, attempts to do just that. It explores the use of multimodal Quality of Service metrics and negotiated control algorithms to optimize data flow by allowing the intelligent agent to give a different priority to different applications, users or information.