Dynamic routing control in heterogeneous tactical networks with multiple traffic priorities

To efficiently use alternate paths during periods of congestion, we have devised prioritized Dynamic Routing Control Agent (pDRCA) that (1) selects best links to meet the bandwidth and delay requirements of traffic, (2) provides load-balancing and traffic prioritization when multiple topologies are available, and (3) handles changes in link quality and traffic demand, and link outages. pDRCA provides multiplatform load balancing to maximize SATCOM (both P2P and multi-point) and airborne links utilization. It influences link selection by configuring the cost metrics on a router's interface, which does not require any changes to the routing protocol itself. It supports service differentiation of multiple traffic priorities by providing more network resources to the highest priority flows. pDRCA does so by solving an optimization problem to find optimal links weights that increase throughput and decrease E2E delay; avoid congested, low quality, and long delay links; and exploit path diversity in the network. These optimal link weights are sent to the local agents to be configured on individual routers per traffic priority. The pDRCA optimization algorithm has been proven effective in improving application performance. We created a variety of different test scenarios by varying traffic profile and link behavior (stable links, varying capacity, and link outages). In the scenarios where high priority traffic experienced significant loss without pDRCA, the average loss was reduced from 49.5% to 13% and in some cases dropped to 0%. Currently, pDRCA is integrated with an open-source software router and priority queues on Linux as a component of Open Tactical Router (OTR), which is being developed by ONR DTCN program.