Collaborative planning over low bandwidth tactical networks

Collaboration planning (CP) and the Inmarsat on the move satellite system were key enabling technologies for corps and division level commanders during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). CP consists of planning tools such as whiteboarding, chat, voice conferencing, and file sharing with numerous collaborative tools commercially available today. The DoD standard for collaboration is the Defense Collaboration Tool Suite (DCTS). While the Inmarsat and DCTS capabilities provided significant improvements in capability for the warfighter, the scalability of these technologies is limited. The commercial CP tools within DCTS such as Microsoft´s Net Meeting are optimized for operation on high speed wired networks, and consequently do not operate well over low bandwidth tactical networks. Additionally the Inmarsat architecture employed is very cost prohibitive when scaled beyond a handful of army commanders. This paper provides an overview of a prototype tactical collaboration tool (TCT) that was developed to operate over low bandwidth wireless networks, along with recommendations for improving the Inmarsat satellite architecture. The paper includes an analysis of the performance of the TCT over a simulated Inmarsat network, and contrasts it against commercial CP tools.