Using ATM in the battlefield

The US Atlantic Command, in collaboration with US Army Communication-Electronics Command Research and Development Engineering Center (RDEC) and the US Army´s 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, performed a series of tests, exercises, and warfighter experiments using asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). These exercises were performed under the auspices of the Proteus project and encompassed all echelons of the battlefield from national and strategic levels to forward battalions. The exercises included specialized applications and use of information, including desktop video teleconferencing, collaborative analysis, shared/distributed applications, network management, and data transfers. The exercises also included encrypted data, and ATM cells from T3 speeds down to 16 kbps. The Proteus project includes an ATM testbed and analysis infrastructure, which encompasses facilities at RDEC, the Intelligence Threat Analysis Center, and Booz Allen. The testbed is used to prototype and test ATM system architectures in different scenarios. Also, tests and analysis of ATM characteristics are performed for each scenario in order to find optimum solutions; these solutions are then operationally tested during the exercises. The overall goal of Proteus is to delineate the benefits of using ATM in the battlefield, and which architectures and applications can best assist in providing these benefits to the soldiers in the field. This paper summarizes the results of the test and analyses conducted thus far, the system architectures used during the exercises and the important technical milestones