Multicast Enhancements to Event-Driven Tactical Networking

As autonomous systems, sensors, and heterogeneous wireless platforms become increasingly interconnected and networked at the tactical edge, the performance of event-driven data sharing amongst groups of nodes becomes more central to effective operations. Event-driven architectures (EDA) are a means to better manage these events and distribute them across a network. The unique deployment constraints and group messaging requirements of tactical networks, however, create technical challenges for current state-of-the-art EDA solutions that often rely on excessive EDA management traffic and depend on unicast transport protocols. To examine group-centric EDA enhancements, we present an evaluation of multicast transport and forwarding technologies using the Zero Message Queuing (ZMQ) EDA socket library in emulated tactical network environments. Using ZMQ to generate group-based messages overtop a multicast transport layer coupled with efficient multicast packet forwarding techniques, we observe improved EDA message delivery and a reduction in overall network traffic load. While this is an initial study, our early results motivate continued work and enhancements to both the underlying network transport and EDA application design.