Distributed Processing: A Tool for Tactical Communications Networks

A proof-of-concept gateway employing a distributed architecture has been built and demonstrated. The gateway serves as a translator between tactical C³ networks. It employs commercial off-the-shelf technology, including a derivative of Ethernet, in a virtual machine implementation. The multinode communication system employs concurrent processing and is managed by a MITRE-developed real-time operating system (kernel). This kernel employs the commercial operating executive Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX), which has been tailored to the multiprocessing environment.