Tactical Wireless Communications and Networks: Design Concepts and Challenges

Chapter 1

Introduction

This book assumes that the reader has basic knowledge of wireless communications, including different types of wireless links, an understanding of the physical layer concepts, familiarity with medium access control (MAC) layer role, and so on. The reader is also expected to have a grasp of computer networks protocol stack layers, the Open System Interface (OSI) model, and some detailed knowledge of the network layer and its evolution to Internet Protocol (IP) with protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) in addition to Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) over IP. Also, some knowledge of topics such as queuing theory is assumed. In the first part of this book, we will review some of these topics in the context of the tactical wireless communications and networking field before we cover the specifics of the field.

One can divide engineers and scientist in the field of tactical wireless communications and networking into two main groups. One group emphasizes the physical layer and dives into topics such as modulation techniques, error control coding at the data link layer (DLL), and the air interface resource management, and so on. The second group emphasizes networking protocols diving into the network layer, the transport layer, and applications. The first group, primarily composed of electrical engineers, likes to build radios assuming that everything above the DLL that has to interface with the radio is commercial-off-the-shelf ...