PACKET COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS SYSTEM (PHASE I: STUDY OF ROUTING ALGORITHMS)

COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS ARE EVOLVING FROM PREDOMINANT CIRCUIT SWITCHED TECHNOLOGY TO PACKET SWITCHED SYSTEMS. THIS EVOLUTION IS OCCURRING FOR BOTH DATA AND VOICE FOR BOTH MILITARY AND COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS. THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF PACKET COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS (PCN) FOR A TACTICAL ENVIRONMENT IS DIFFICULT BECAUSE OF ELECTRONIC COUNTER MEASURES (ECM), UNIT MOBILITY, THE NEED FOR RAPID NETWORK RECONFIGURATION, VARYING SIGNAL QUALITY, AND THE LOSS OF COMMUNICATIONS LINKS BECAUSE OF PHYSICAL ATTACK OR HARDWARE FAILURE. THE MAIN LONG TERM OBJECTIVE OF THIS EFFORT IS TO DEVELOP A COMPUTERAIDED ANALYSIS AND DESIGN TOOL THAT CAN BE USED TO EVALUATE THE PERFORMANCE OF PCN'S AS A FUNCTION OF LINK AVAILABILITY, LINK QUALITY, LINK CAPACITY, NETWORK PROTOCOL, NETWORK ROUTING, AND FLOW CONTROL ALGORITHMS. IN PHASE I OF THE PROPOSED EFFORT, WE WILL DEFINE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A PACKET COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK SYNTHESIS AND ANALYSIS SYSTEM (PCNSAS), AND IDENTIFY THE RESEARCH ISSUES THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED IN PHASE II. FURTHER, IN PHASE I WE WILL DEVELOP THE FRAMEWORK FOR PCNSAS AND IMPLEMENT A SMALL SEGMENT OF IT TO DEMONSTRATE ITS FEASIBILITY. THE UNIQUE ASPECTS OF THE ROUTING PROBLEM WILL SPECIFICALLY BE ADDRESSED IN PHASE I. IN PHASE II WE WILL COMPLETE THE RESEARCH AND FULLY DEVELOP PCNSAS.