Domain Area Planning Utility (DAPU) for planning wireless Battlefield Networks

We describe the key design concepts of Domain Area Planning Utility (DAPU) developed by the PILSNER program to perform high-speed automated planning of Future Battlefield Networks (FBNs). DAPU processes multiple inputs from Resource Planning such as nodes and their trajectories, planned ground- and air-tier nets, Unit Task Organization (UTO) relationships, and typical communication requirements. It then considers multiple metrics and constraints in planning both radio topology and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing hierarchy. DAPU automatically creates and evaluates multiple intermediate solutions as well as builds the final plan for the entire mission within a few minutes for a 328-node network (data based on the government-supplied Attica scenario). The planner can use the plan as an input to the generation of communication goals, which are policy directives how to form the network and which are downloaded to network nodes prior to deployment.