| Summary: | Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited === Today's battlefield is much more heterogeneous than in the past. With the emphasis on joint operations both within the US military and in consort with coalition nations, the need for communications and sharing of tactical information across service and national boundaries has never been greater. A combat identification (CID) network that enables force's positions on the battlefield to be displayed at the appropriate granularity for the various levels of commanders would be a valuable tactical and strategic asset. This thesis explores the possible network architectures and protocols available to implement such a system and determines, through modeling and simulation, the optimal design to minimize time performance of the flow of information through the network. Using a realistic scenario as a basis, system engineering principles were used to generate an optimal network architecture from the design parameters chosen. The optimal design was determined to be a network consisting of an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) access type, asymmetric transmit and receive of messages and network flow control implementation. Additionally, units on the battlefield should be grouped together by type within a region and the highest bandwidth possible should be used.
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