Self-Similarity in Tactical Network Traffic and Tactical Radio Experimentation

Abstract : Network traffic has been reported to exhibit self-similar properties over time. This behavior has been traced to a number of factors, including file-size distributions and characteristics of current network protocols. In this report, we present results from examining tactical military networks to determine if they also exhibit self-similar behavior. Tactical networks differ from typical commercial networks in that the effective throughput is orders of magnitude lower, protocols are particular to the tactical function they support, and the data transmitted is typically more homogeneous than that found on commercial networks. Tactical network utilization is often decidedly different than that found on commercial networks. The data used in this study were taken from two sources: (1) synthetic traffic streams generated using a fractional Gaussian noise generator and (2) data from field exercises.