Performance analysis of collaborative planning over a multi-hop Near Term Digital Radio (NTDR) network

Collaborative planning (CP) applications are becoming an integral part of today´s warfighters requirements as illustrated by the fielding requirements of the First Digitized Division (FDD). CP allows the warfighters to effectively plan missions by integrating voice, text chat, application sharing and whiteboarding. In the FDD, CP is deployed at battalion (BN) brigade (BDE) and division (DIV) tactical operation centers (TOCs). The communications requirements vary at the different echelons. The difference stems from the fact that the BN TOCs are required to support more frequent movements than BDE or DIV TOCs. Because of this frequent mobility requirement, an ad hoc terrestrial communications system is employed. Currently, the Near Term Digital Radio (NTDR) is used to provide communications between BDE and BN TOCs