US Patent 9071451 Geocast-based situation awareness

Geocast-based situation awareness utilizing a scalable, distributed ad hoc geocast protocol as a communication primitive, may provide a field common operating picture (FCOP) for providing location tracking, movement history, telemetry, and messaging in near real time to all operators in a scenario. Information may be transferred using a query/response geocast message protocol. Caching on devices may be utilized to gain scalability. A query message may have a payload containing a type indication and a header containing a description of a geocast region of intended reception, which may comprise the monitored region, the location of the monitorer, or any appropriate combination thereof. Response messages may be sent from devices located in the monitored region to an area containing the location of the sender of a query. A response message may contain monitored information, such as current location, telemetry data, and/or recent movement history, or the like.