Resilient Execution of Localized Algorithms at the Tactical Edge (RELATE)

Warfighters engaged in tactical operations are increasingly reliant on time-sensitive sensor information collected from Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) devices at the tactical edge to achieve mission goals. If the information flow is disrupted or the information is not processed correctly, then mission success can be severely impacted. A tactical edge network poses unique challenges for information collection because of its limited connectivity between information producers and consumers, its limited computing resources, its highly dynamic nature, and its exposure to both environmental and malicious factors that disrupt transmission and processing. To enable Warfighters to process information using computational resources at the tactical edge, we propose a framework for Resilient Execution of Localized Algorithms at the Tactical Edge (RELATE). RELATE is based on a hierarchical networking architecture and a dynamic self-organizing structured overlay network to enable discovery and allocation of computational and communication resources across a rapidly changing network. RELATE optimizes the use of available network and computational resources to increase both the timeliness of and the confidence in the results of distributed algorithms executing in tactical edge networks.