MESHWARD

Resilient tactical mesh: MANET routing + DTN + sovereignty-aware multi-bearer failover. Cognis Digital LLC · US-only.

MESHWARD is a tactical communications mesh built on one hard lesson: no single bearer that someone else controls should ever be the only path for mission-critical traffic.

In 2022, during Ukraine's Kherson counteroffensive, a commercial SATCOM operator ordered a regional blackout — drones went dark and artillery lost its link (Reuters/Rappler, Kyiv Independent). By 2026 both sides depend on the same constellation (CNN). MESHWARD treats that dependency as a fault to engineer around: keep a sovereign RF mesh underneath everything, route around jamming, and carry traffic store-and-forward when the network splits.

Communications resilience — not a weapon. MESHWARD moves data reliably in contested conditions. No targeting, no strike, nothing offensive.

The core idea: bearer sovereignty

Every bearer carries an external-control risk — the chance a third party can cut, throttle, or geofence it. MESHWARD ranks bearers by survivability (sovereignty + jam-resistance + low detectability + infrastructure-independence) and, for FLASH/IMMEDIATE traffic, insists the primary bearer be one you actually control. Commercial SATCOM is kept as best-effort augmentation — never the sole path.

$ meshward resilience --mesh mesh.json --node CP     # has RF mesh + mil + commercial SATCOM
  before_primary: rf_mesh   after_primary: rf_mesh   critical_survives: True
$ meshward resilience --mesh mesh.json --node OP      # Starlink-only outpost
  before_primary: satcom_commercial   after_primary: None   critical_survives: False

Capabilities

• Bearers (bearer) — RF mesh (MANET), directional LOS, mil-SATCOM, commercial SATCOM, cellular; profiles for bandwidth/latency/range/jam-resistance/detectability/control-risk, and a survivability ranking.
• Links & topology (link, topology) — ETX/airtime link metric with a jamming model, live neighbor tables, connectivity, hop distance, partition detection.
• Routing (routing) — Dijkstra least-airtime-cost routing and k node-disjoint multipath so critical traffic can be spread or replicated across independent routes.
• DTN (dtn) — store-carry-forward for partitioned networks: Epidemic, Spray-and-Wait, and PRoPHET forwarding, with TTL expiry and a copy budget (cf. IETF Bundle Protocol).
• QoS (qos) — military message precedence (FLASH/IMMEDIATE/PRIORITY/ROUTINE) with a strict-priority, FIFO-within-level queue.
• Resilience (resilience) — sovereignty-aware bearer selection, a failover controller, and the modeled Starlink-blackout scenario.
• Simulation (sim) — deterministic delivery evaluation for connected topologies and a store-carry-forward simulator over a contact schedule (delivery ratio + delay).
• Facade (mesh) — one object to build the mesh, enqueue precedence traffic, route, and report health.

Quick start (CLI)

python -m meshward route      --mesh mesh.json --src CP --dst SQ   # best + disjoint routes
python -m meshward health     --mesh mesh.json                     # partition report
python -m meshward resilience --mesh mesh.json --node CP           # Starlink-blackout check

Library

from meshward import (Mesh, Node, NodeId, Link, BearerType, Precedence,
                      starlink_blackout_scenario)

mesh = (Mesh()
        .add_node(Node(NodeId("CP"), {BearerType.RF_MESH, BearerType.SATCOM_COMMERCIAL}))
        .add_node(Node(NodeId("SQ"), {BearerType.RF_MESH}))
        .add_link(Link(NodeId("CP"), NodeId("SQ"), BearerType.RF_MESH, 0.95)))
print(mesh.route("CP", "SQ").path)                       # ['CP', 'SQ']
print(starlink_blackout_scenario({BearerType.RF_MESH, BearerType.SATCOM_COMMERCIAL}))

Tests

python -m pytest -q      # 465 tests

Part of the Cognis unmanned logistics program

The comms backbone under DROPWING (air resupply), MULEWAY (ground resupply/CASEVAC), DEEPDRIFT (UUV survey), tasked by QUARTERMASTER. Distinct from edgemesh (decentralized compute mesh) — MESHWARD is the communications mesh.