Virtual tree path management for battlefield networks

Virtual trees are source-rooted trees in ATM networks in which VCs originating at the source but going to different destinations can share some of the bandwidth pre-allocated to the VT, thus providing an additional multiplexing advantage over virtual paths. Non-ATM protocols such as MIL-STD-188-220A can also take advantage of virtual trees because source concatenation provides a benefit very similar to ATM multiplexing. We describe the results of a simulation study which shows that virtual tree configurations have almost 40% lower cost than corresponding virtual path configurations. Applications of this work to dynamic routing schemes for battlefield wireless networks are outlined