An urban warfare application of systems engineering for the first derivative

In an effort related to urban operations, the United States Army has funded a research project for the University of Virginia (UVA) that includes the design and development of a reconfigurable information management system (RIMS) mission-specific deployments of unattended sensors. Using a highly flexible networking technology called HyperCast, the RIMS project hopes to provide information in a dynamic and adaptable fashion over disparate networks (Liebeherr 1999). As an early step in the RIMS, project, an experiment was performed to evaluate the prototype system´s ability to be reconfigured and setup in different scenarios. By testing the time to configure and install the prototype, this experiment helps indicate the current system´s ability to rapidly adjust. These results will act as an initial indication that the application of the reconfigurable concept can enhance the ability to rapidly set-up systems on a mission-specific basis.