A Discussion of Metrics for Parallelized Army Mobile ad hoc Network Simulations

Mobile ad hoc networks will provide the increasingly net-centric Army fighting force with the ability to communicate across a highly dynamic and evolving operational space. While these networks share traits of commercial wireless networks, they are unique in many regards. Highly mobile forces using communication devices with varying signal strengths and capacities create networks that are difficult to characterize, control, and optimize. There are several approaches that researchers can use to mitigate these challenges, the topic here being network simulation. Network simulation is a valuable tool to model network behavior and study the interactions of digitized devices within the Army battlespace. Given the large size of deployed Army networks, it is desirable to have scalable network simulators where large networks can be studied and optimized in synthetic environments. This report discusses network simulators at a high level within the context of Army mobile ad hoc networks. Further, it discusses key metrics that we feel need to be addressed to determine viability and utility to mobile ad hoc network centric warfare simulators. The original document contains color images.