When you need to plan and manage

a rapidly changing communications

network in a high stress environment,

Tactical Communications Tool makes

your life easier.

Equipped with a broad range of con-

figurable equipment objects, Tactical

Communications Tool will handle the

technical details and let you focus on

supporting the mission.

Focus on the mission

Tactical Communications Tool

Overview Originally built to support planning of radio link networks for mobile telecommunication in the Swedish Army, TCT is now capable of supporting a broad range of radio equipment. It has been battle tested in domestic exercises and in international peace keeping missions. TCT is built to support experts in tactical planning. TCT tries to manage technical details in a way that let the operator focus on solving the tactical problem rather than remembering technical de-tails. Time Based Planning Planning a constantly moving network means keeping track of when changes should occur. TCT let

the operator plan each event in the network, such as redeployment of nodes and connection of radio links or other communication equipment. TCT uses a GANTT-like view of the plan to give the operator an overview of when changes in the network will occur. The plan can also be separated in phases and the user can create alternatives to each phase in order to plan for different courses of action.

Radio Link Planning The heart of TCT is the radio link planning. With unique functions to support rapid planning of a moving network, TCT will make planning a complex network easy. TCT:s unique ‘Possible Links’ feature help the operator by calculating which nodes are reachable by using a certain type of equipment. The result is presented in the map and the user can quickly cre-ate the necessary links. By using ‘Dummy units’ the operator can try different deployment options with a template unit. These dummy units can be used to calculate coverage, possi-ble links or as a register of deployment locations. When a real node are planned to the location, it is simply dropped on top of the dummy unit and assumes the exact location of the dummy. Radio links can be examined in detail using the prop-erty dialog, where parameters on the equipment are set. The dialog also gives a graphical view of the link path with the possibility of editing the terrain data. Radio Coverage Calculations All radio planning software must be able to calculate radio coverage and TCT is no exception. The user has a choice of calculating a circular area around a node or calculating a irregularly shaped area at a distance from the node. The second option is useful when looking for a suitable location for the remote station for a radio link or when calculating radio coverage along a route. Plan Status Management A mobile network is in constant change. Some parts of the plan are already in place, some parts are ordered and others are still in early planning stages. Keeping track of this can be confusing with a large network. TCT assigns a status to each event in the plan. The status can be sketch, planned, ordered or confirmed. This is indicated on the workstation with a status colour on events and links. This information helps the operator to quickly identify what parts of the network is up and running and what part is being planned. Tactical information To aid the operator in the planning process, TCT can present a tactical layer with information such as units, borders and movements. These can be presented either using the Swedish national sym-bols or the NATO APP 6a symbol set.

Equipment Definition Radio calculation requires access to detailed description of the capabilities and attributes of the equipment. Defining nodes correctly can require expert skills and technical knowledge not always available in the field. TCT takes another approach to this. The available equipment and nodes are defined in configura-tion files. These files describe the types of equipment with all relevant radio parameters, the nodes the operator can use to build the network and the equipment configuration of the nodes. These files can be created before the mission by technical experts. This ensures not only that they are cor-rect, but also that all operators use the same definition of the equipment. By using a few generic equipment objects and setting relevant parameters, an expert user can cre-ate a detailed description of the system. This description hide a unnecessary details from the opera-tor doing the planning and let him use familiar concepts and objects. This also eliminates many hu-man mistakes when planning under time pressure in a constantly changing environment. Channel Assignment and Interference Calculation The radio link network can be assigned chan-nels (frequencies) and TCT can then calculate the interference between all links. The result is presented to the operator by colour coding the links. This enables the operator to quickly identify which links are affected and which links contribute the most to the interference. Concurrent Multi-user Planning Planning a constantly moving network is a demanding task. The multi-user planning functions sup-ports distributing the workload among more than one operator. Building upon the Plan Status Management functions, the operator subscribes to the relevant parts of the network. He can then filter his subscription on the status of the plan and the nodes being planned. When he adds his parts of the plan, they are immediately available to other operators. This means you can separate the planning in geographical regions, different parts of the time-space or different hierarchical lev-els of network nodes. Since communications is usually a limiting factor in missions, you can add a viewer workstation to a commanders position to keep him updated on his communications options. Geographical data TCT uses Spatial Ace from Carmenta AB to read geographical data. This means TCT can read a large number of formats, both vector data and raster maps. TCT uses height data and terrain type classifications to feed the radio calculations. These data sets can also be presented as back-ground maps to the user. Order generation TCT can generate technical orders for setting up network nodes. The order lists all relevant details about the equipment and the location for the node. To further support the situation awareness of the nodes, you can export a deployment plan. A deploy-ment plan is an excerpt from the total plan that includes one node and all connected remote nodes. This can be loaded into a local TCT workstation at the node.

Features • Radio path calculations • Possible links calculation • Radio coverage calculations • Planning of transit and gateway connections • Equipment types

Analogue VHF and UHF radio TETRA Fixed frequency Digital Radio link Frequency hopping radio link (RL371) Digital VHF radio Point To Multipoint radio links

• Frequency conflict calculations for radio links • Time based planning • Concurrent Multi-user planning • Order creation • Plan status management • Equipment status management • Supports a broad range of geographical data formats

Tactical communications Tool was created by Front End AB in cooperation with the Swedish Defence Material Administration, Geoinfo AB, and Obexcode A/S. Tactical Communications Tool use Spatial Ace® from Carmenta AB to handle geographical data, and Detvag90 wave propagation package from The Swedish Defence Research Establishment for radio calcula-tions.

Need more information? Front End Strategy AB Hertig Karlsgatan 2 582 21 Linköping Sweden

Phone: +46 13—24 93 50 Fax:: +46 13—24 93 57 Email: info@frontend.se

System requirements • Windows XP or newer • 800 MHz CPU • 512 MB RAM • 50 MB free disk for application • Approximately 4 GB free disk for geographical data (depends on the

selected area) • Network card (for multi user planning) For multi-user planning TCT need access to a Microsoft SQL-server 2000 database.