Simulation implementation and performance analysis for situational awareness data dissemination in a tactical MANET

Situational awareness (SA) information in tactical mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is essential to enable commanders to make informed decisions during military operations. Sharing SA information in MANETs is a challenging problem because missions are run with dynamic network topologies, using unreliable wireless links, and with devices that have strict bandwidth and energy constraints. Development and validation of efficient data delivery methods in MANETs often require simulation; however, the literature is sparse regarding simulations specifically for SA dissemination. In this paper we present a simulation implementation for a newly proposed Opportunistic SA Passing (OSAP) scheme and investigate its efficiency in realistic scenarios. Moreover, we propose several metrics aimed at facilitating evaluation of SA dissemination schemes in general, and we demonstrate the applicability of the metrics in our simulation results. Our simulation provides a flexible framework and evaluation platform for experimental studies of SA data dissemination in tactical MANETs.