The Survivable Radio Network (SURAN) project was sponsored by DARPA in the 1980s to develop a set of mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) radio-routers, then known as "packet radios". The program began in 1983 with the following goals:

• develop a small, low-cost, low-power radio that would support more sophisticated packet radio protocols than the DARPA Packet Radio project from the 1970s
• develop and demonstrate algorithms that could scale to tens of thousands of nodes
• develop and demonstrate techniques for robust and survivable packet networking in sophisticated electronic attacks

A follow-on program in 1987, the Low-cost Packet Radio (LPR), attempted further innovations in mobile networking protocols, with design goals including:

• scalability based on dynamic clustering
• management of radio spreading codes for security, and increasing capacity

BBN

BBN

BBN might refer to:* BBN Technologies, formerly Bolt, Beranek and Newman, a technology company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, best known for its work on packet switching technology and its construction of the Interface Message Processor - the first router...

 provided the MANET protocols, and Rockwell

Rockwell

- People :* Dick Rockwell, an American comic strip and comic book artist, nephew of Norman Rockwell* Francis W. Rockwell, a United States Congressman from Massachusetts* Francis W...

provided radio hardware. The prototype radios produced in these programs were known as VRC-99 radios, and were used by the Department of Defense throughout the 1990s for experimentation.