Overview#
Argus ingests NATO Link-22 tactical data link traffic conforming to STANAG 5522 and places it, clearance-filtered and audit-trailed, onto a single fused operational picture without a proprietary Link-22 terminal display.
Link-22 is the NATO standard for beyond-line-of-sight coalition data sharing, carrying tactical data over HF and SATCOM bearers so that ships, aircraft, and command centres beyond mutual radio horizon still hold a common tactical picture. Traditionally that traffic is only visible on a dedicated Link-22 system console, isolating it from the wider operational picture. This integration provides a complete ingest-and-query pipeline that accepts Link-22 messages, persists them per organisation, and surfaces them for command staff to review alongside everything else they are tracking.
The benefit to a command centre is a unified view. Naval, air, and joint-force staff gain a clearance-filtered window onto coalition Link-22 message traffic next to Link-16 air tracks, AIS maritime data, and ATAK ground positions, all on one fused common operational picture. Every message that arrives is recorded in a tamper-evident audit trail and emitted onto the shared interoperability fusion bus, so the coalition mission context becomes a first-class, queryable part of the recognised picture rather than a separate feed an operator has to mentally reconcile.
Key Features#
- STANAG 5522 Message Ingest: Accepts NATO Link-22 tactical data link messages through a single authenticated ingest operation, capturing message type, network identifier, originator, and the full message body for every record.
- Network Participation Group Capture: Records the Network Participation Group (NPG) for each message, preserving the logical grouping Link-22 uses to organise traffic by function so operators can reason about which participation group a message belongs to.
- Per-Organisation Message Store: Persists every message to a dedicated PostgreSQL store scoped to the owning organisation, giving each customer an isolated, durable record of its coalition traffic.
- Clearance-Filtered Query Access: Returns messages filtered against the requesting operator's clearance, so secrecy-marked traffic is only visible to suitably cleared staff.
- Message-Type Statistics: Provides counts of stored messages grouped by message type, giving command staff an at-a-glance sense of traffic composition and tempo.
- Fusion Bus Emission: Emits an operational mission-context entity in the coalition domain onto the shared interoperability fusion bus on every ingest, so Link-22 traffic joins the common operational picture automatically.
- Tamper-Evident Audit Trail: Writes a dedicated audit record tagged for NATO Link-22 STANAG 5522 on every ingest, capturing the acting user, organisation, and message reference for accountability.
- Secrecy-Level Tagging: Stores a secrecy level on every message, defaulting to a safe baseline and driving the clearance filtering applied at query time.
Use Cases#
Naval Command Centres#
A maritime operations centre ingests Link-22 HF and SATCOM traffic from deployed task group units and reviews it alongside AIS maritime data on one picture. Watch staff see coalition message activity and surrounding shipping in the same view, without switching to a separate Link-22 console.
Air and Joint-Force Operations#
A joint air operations cell folds Link-22 traffic into the recognised picture beside Link-16 air tracks. Planners and watchkeepers gain a single fused view spanning coalition data-link message traffic and live air tracks, supporting faster, better-informed coordination across participating nations.
Coalition and Combined Task Force Staff#
Combined task force headquarters staff hold a clearance-filtered, audit-trailed view of coalition Link-22 message traffic. Because access is filtered by clearance and every ingest is recorded, multinational commands can share an operational picture while respecting national secrecy markings.
Beyond-Line-of-Sight Situational Awareness#
Units operating beyond mutual radio horizon contribute and consume tactical data over Link-22's HF and SATCOM bearers. Command staff ashore or afloat see that beyond-line-of-sight coalition picture rendered into the fused operational view rather than confined to a specialist terminal.
Integration#
Argus exposes the Link-22 capability over its GraphQL API. Customers ingest traffic with the ingestLink22Message operation and read it back with the link22Messages operation, which supports message-type filtering, pagination, and clearance filtering. The link22Stats operation returns message counts grouped by type. Every operation enforces authentication and organisation scoping, so each customer only ever sees its own records.
Authentication uses OAuth2 with JWT bearer tokens, the same model applied across the platform, so a coalition gateway or message broker plugs in with standard credentials and no bespoke handshake. On ingest the service writes the message to PostgreSQL, emits a normalised coalition mission-context entity onto the shared interoperability fusion bus, and records an audit entry, all in one call. A customer connects a Link-22 gateway or upstream broker to the ingest operation and immediately gains a fused, queryable, audited view of coalition traffic; the benefit is that existing Link-22 infrastructure becomes visible to the whole command without a new terminal on every desk.
The same fusion bus carries Link-16 air tracks, AIS maritime data, and ATAK ground positions, so Link-22 traffic is correlated against other live feeds on a single common operational picture rather than living in isolation.
Open Standards#
- STANAG 5522 (NATO Link-22): The NATO standardisation agreement defining the Link-22 tactical data link; this capability ingests, stores, and audits messages conforming to STANAG 5522, capturing Link-22 constructs including message type, network identifier, originator, and Network Participation Group.
- STANAG 5516 (Link-16 / JTIDS): The NATO standardisation agreement defining the Link-16 tactical data link; Link-16 air tracks are fused alongside Link-22 traffic on the common operational picture.
- ITU-R M.1371 (Automatic Identification System): The International Telecommunication Union recommendation specifying the AIS maritime automatic identification protocol; AIS vessel data is one of the live feeds correlated with Link-22 traffic on the fused picture.
- OAuth 2.0 (RFC 6749): The authorisation framework used to issue bearer tokens for all API access, allowing coalition gateways and message brokers to authenticate with standard credentials.
- JSON Web Token (RFC 7519): The token format carried as the OAuth 2.0 bearer credential, encoding the authenticated identity and organisation scope enforced on every operation.
- GraphQL (June 2018 specification): The open query language through which the ingest, query, and statistics operations are exposed; customers call documented operations over a single endpoint without bespoke integration work.
Security & Compliance#
Every operation requires an authenticated session and is scoped to the requesting organisation, so coalition traffic is isolated per customer and never crosses tenant boundaries. Messages carry a secrecy level, and query results are filtered against the operator's clearance, supporting multi-level access requirements common to combined joint task force environments. Each ingest writes a dedicated audit record identifying the acting user, the organisation, and the message reference, giving commands a tamper-evident account of who introduced which coalition message and when.
Last Reviewed: 2026-05-26 Last Updated: 2026-05-26