QAM: A comprehensive QoS-aware Middleware suite for tactical communications

QAM (QoS-aware Adaptive Middleware) is a soft- ware framework for developing distributed applications intended to operate in tactical MANET environments´. Developing distributed applications for tactical MANETs is challenging due to the dynamic network capacity and competing priorities across multiple applications. QAM allows a developer to focus on the processing aspects of the application by abstracting out the details of bandwidth constrained communication and relative application priorities. QAM enforces sharing of dynamic network capacity by application flows by allocating bandwidth use in proportion to application priority. QAM consists of: (i) an Adaptable Transport layer in which the rate of a flow can be tuned dynamically by an external controller, (ii) a measurement-based Admission Control function that enables applications to seek admission for network flows and receive a starting rate, and (iii) a measurement-based Quality Adjustment function that adjusts the rates of admitted flows based on their priorities and optionally provides rate feedback to adaptive applications. Adaptable Transport supports both unreliable and reliable point-to-point modes. On top, QAM builds a distribution layer for point-to-multipoint communication. To enforce priority-aware resource allocation in such communication, QAM incorporates Group Admission Control and Group Quality Adjustment functions. QAM provides a Legacy Proxy facility which interacts with Admission Control and Quality Adjustment on behalf of the legacy applications, to allow them to benefit from QAM capabilities and co-exist with QAM applications.