NEDAT - A Network Engineering Design Analytic Toolset to Design and Analyze Large Scale MANETs

Future battlefield networks such as FCS and WIN-T will rely on mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) to satisfy their communications requirements. Thus there is a critical need for systematic techniques based on formal methodologies to design MANETs to meet mission requirements. However, given the complexity of MANETs, the variety of applications they need to support, and the associated performance measures, it is extremely challenging to perform such an engineering design of MANETs. The challenges stem both from the large number of design choices that can be made for any given mission, and, more importantly, from the lack of a systematic body of principles that a network designer can rely upon to guide these choices. To address this critical need, a joint effort has been initiated between Telcordia and CERDEC to formulate a Network Engineering Design Analytic Toolset (NEDAT) that applies formal network science-based approaches to systematically and accurately design, analyze and predict the performance of MANETs. In this paper, we present the results from the first phase of this joint effort.