Evaluating communication architectures in operational information services (version 1.1)

In military operations, many units are mobile and equipped with relatively limited (wireless) communication means in terms of bandwidth and transmission range. Moreover, communications are potentially subject to interference, jamming, and unavailability (e.g., because of radio silence). In this paper we introduce a formal data model for communication impairments in a system that has distributed sources and users of information, and a corresponding mathematical model for the quality of information provisioning in the system. The models focus at policies for updating the information at the user side from the source. Both models have been implemented in a software tool and tested with an example scenario from army logistics. The interactive tool allows a network architect to choose proper dimensions for the communication links and networks, and to compare the quality of the information in the system under different update strategies