Tactical communications using the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol

This paper proposes a traffic management protocol built upon the 802.11 MAC that is designed to provide the multiple qualities of service particular to tactical communications. Together, the protocols allow for the integration of voice and data traffic giving priority to voice without preempting data. Additional features allow for more efficient collection and dissemination of position information. The most attractive feature, however, is that the protocols allow mobile stations to conserve power, using one third to one fifth the power used otherwise. The paper presents a study that seeks the design parameters, both at the physical and protocol level, for a network to support a company sized unit. In so doing we present a design methodology and validate the performance of the network using a simulation that is absolutely faithful to the protocol operation. We conduct a sensitivity analysis to explore the effects of the design parameters on network performance