Systems engineering of communication protocols for command and control systems

This paper presents an overview of the ten-year ongoing systems engineering effort for the communication system design of the preeminent command and control fire support system used by the United States Army and Marines today. The system is known as the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS). The primary focus of this paper is the design of the communication system and the protocols that were developed to meet the requirements of time critical messages. The protocol designed for AFATDS has subsequently become a major component in MIL-STD-188-220B. Simulation results for critical design decisions are presented. General bandwidth utilization, throughput, and message latency were the primary concerns early in the systems engineering study. The performance for the most time critical messages, Check Fires, was subsequently studied and solved. Additional systems engineering work to enhance the protocols to further improve the performance for Check Fire messages are discussed