Dynamic allocation of processing capacity in a multiband radio

A configurable multiband radio (MBR) with the ability to generate multiple simultaneous waveforms from HF to SHF will play a significant role in future tactical military communications and in facilitating interoperability on the global grid communications infrastructure. The authors initiated work on processing strategies within an MBR with multiple processors. Traffic requirements and processing needs can be expected to vary widely for different channels from HF to SHF. Thus, rather than having dedicated processors, it will be advantageous to allocate processing power to each channel on demand. The authors describe a simulation model to understand the impact of shared processing in a MBR and related issues. They provide details on the simulation structure, the object comprising the simulation, and operation of the simulation. The simulation deals with sharing of MBR processing and RF assets among multiple simultaneous users within a network of such MBRs. A traffic model provides a variety of traffic scenarios including priority, point-to-point and multicast, voice or data media, and datagram, request/response and request/acknowledge protocols. Buffering on sending and receiving side is permitted. The authors conclude with some simulation results indicating tradeoffs between the number of processors and loss of messages due to processing demands, and the impact of task segmentation, buffering, and channel traffic levels