Communications realism for network simulations

The digital battlefield will present unprecedented requirements for the transfer of digital information (voice, data, and imagery). Realizing the vision of the Army´s 21st century information transport architecture will require application of advanced modeling and simulation technology for performing architecture analysis, “what-if” drills, systems design, testing, and user training. The models and simulations must include communications realism, which is a simulation feature through which a synthetic environment reflects the same communications problems that exist in a real environment. Communications realism for link-level simulations has been achieved in the Integrated Terrain-Environment-Multipath Model (ITEMM). The paper describes the ITEMM, its real-time simulation algorithms, and work in progress to evolve these into a Real-Time Communications network Simulator (RTCNS) for use in a distributed interactive simulation (DIS) environment. It also describes how communication realism has been modeled for stationary and moving platforms and provides a detailed technical description of real-time simulation algorithms developed for modeling mobile radio links