Proactive Integrated Link Selection for Network Robustness (PILSNER)

This paper describes a research and development program called Proactive Integrated Link Selection for Network Robustness (PILSNER) that is being executed at the Communications-Electronics Research Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC), Ft. Monmouth, NJ. The objective of PILSNER is to develop, mature and integrate networking technologies that will solve the issues of limited network reliability and connectivity, resulting from the inability to make optimal use of all available link types simultaneously. The PILSNER effort therefore focuses on the development of Pro-active Diverse Link Selection (PAD-LS) technologies, which enable automatic link selection based on network characteristics and mission objectives, over a heterogeneous multi-tiered, multi-link network, in order to bypass congestion and outages. The PAD-LS technologies are designed to proactively allocate and manage bandwidth over multiple transmission paths in order to provide a level of redundancy for assured network availability and connectivity. PAD-LS technologies will address issues related to optimal link selection, capturing link local information and neighbor link information across multi-hop connections, adaptive bandwidth management, IP Quality of Service, IP multicast, and functionality within a mobile tactical environment. Demonstration of these technologies shall be integrated and conducted with a variety of transmission media consistent with the projected Warfighter Information Network - Tactical (WIN-T) capabilities. PILSNER is part of the Tactical Mobile Networks (TMN) Advanced Technology Objective (Demonstration) (ATO(D)), and is scheduled to run from FY2006 through FY2009.