Information Flow: Tactical Network Design and Bandwidth Management

The United States Army is engaged in an effort to use information systems to achieve tactical advantage over potential adversaries. Existing and future information systems place a significant load on the tactical network, resulting in a bandwidth management crisis. Yet, there is no prioritization, allocation, planning, or management tool available to simulate information flows over time for different communications configurations and different operational conditions. This paper describes the development methodology for such a tool. A graphical user interface (GUI) allows the tactical planner to change the communication system setup, the operational conditions, and tactical entity behaviors, and then observe the resulting information flows and bandwidth requirements over the tactical data network. The prototype tool enables planners to rapidly determine viable configurations based on actual mission requirements and current systems availability. This will result in more effective utilization of the available bandwidth and assist in determining prioritization of information flow in the future.