The 2019 JANUS Interoperability Fest: A Field Report

Underwater acoustic communications are currently implemented through a variety of vendor-specific protocols. The lack of interoperability between these protocols has prompted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Science and Technology Organization (STO) Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) to lead a collaborative effort toward the establishment of a standard for digital underwater acoustic communications. The JANUS standard was promulgated as a NATO standard, Standardization Agreement (STANAG) 4748, in March 2017 and has since been used by a growing number of vendors. To promote interoperability and engagement with industry, CMRE began organizing the JANUS Interoperability Fest. The goal of this event was to collectively exercise JANUS implementations from companies and to clear up any possible misunderstandings with the technical specification. The first edition of the JANUS Fest took place in 2018. This article describes the planned and performed tests as well as the primary outcomes of the second JANUS Fest, which was organized in 2019. The success of this event is demonstrated by the results and the positive feedback from participants and observers.