CALL FOR PAPERS
Special Issue of Computer Networks (Elsevier) on
Future Advances in Military Communications Systems & Technologies
 
Since the end of the Cold War there have been numerous advances in the Telecommunications Technologies that support the tactical operational support of modern military personnel. The requirement today is for rapid deployment of military assets in remote parts of the world, often in environmentally hostile geography. This places an ever-increasing dependence on Information and Communications Technology to provide real-time fault-tolerant QoS command, control and data management over fixed and freespace communications transport infrastructures. The ability of the modern combatant to have an array of 'on-board' sensor feeds to various components of the central command and control stack using a combination of HF Radio, SATCOM, spread spectrum or IP protocols places added pressure on the communications stack to  provide an fully integrated network management solution for  the Digital Battlefield.  
 
Key services that need to be provided include: node and network  mobility (NEMO, MIP), request admission control, energy efficient device operation (e.g.  IP address  management or DNS), intelligent QoS-based network resource provisioning, error-free physical and MAC-layer protocols and robust security.   In all of these sub-level communications technologies there is a  challenge to provide more effective topology transition and data management mechanisms in  order that any ad-hoc network can self-heal without impacting user data communications sessions after exception condition events have been detected. 
 
This special issue of Computer Networks is intended to foster the dissemination of high quality research in  Integrated Mobility and Ad-hoc Networking in Military Networks (e.g. dealing with geolocation, rapid deployment of real-time intelligence data gathering). In recent years this has become an area of great interest with sessions at NOMS, MILCOM, and IFIP/IEEE IM as well as papers in COMNET, IEEE and ACM Journals. It is the objective of this special issue to publish papers presenting methodology, performance,  and methods for providing/increasing mobility and the ability to configure an ah-hoc network  at the necessary levels of QoS in support of military operations. This performance can be shown by analysis, simulation or implementation with preference being given to papers providing comparisons of alternatives used via air, land and sea.  
 
Only technical papers describing previously unpublished, original, state-of-the-art research, and not currently under review by another conference or journal will be considered. We solicit papers covering a variety of topics related to Future Advances in Military Communications Systems & Technologies including,  but not limited to:
 
Mobility Management in Tactical Networks   
Routing Protocols for the Digital Battlefield 
Supporting Mobility in Topology Transition Networks
Address Allocation & Management in Hostile Networking Environments  
Security Architectures for Ad-Hoc Networking
Tactical Self-organising Sensor Networks
QoS Resource Provisioning for MANET
Emerging SATCOM systems and architectures
Physical and MAC-Layer Protocols
Intelligent Agents for Network & Data Management
Network Switching Architectures and Protocols
Modeling and simulation of tactical communications systems
Real-time Fault Tolerant Protocols
Quantum Key Distribution in SATCOM
 
Authors should follow the Computer Networks (Elsevier) manuscript format described at http://www.elsevier.nl/locate/comnet.  Prospective authors should initially submit a PDF version of an  Extended Abstract of their proposed paper topic and relevant details (not to exceed three pages) to  Professor Gerard Parr at: gp.parr@ulster.ac.uk  by Thursday 31st August 2003.  On review of the extended abstracts complete manuscripts will be invited  according to the following timetable :-
 
Manuscript Due  : Friday 31st  November 2003
Acceptance Notification : Friday 23rd February 2004
Final manuscript Due : Friday 16th May 2004
Publication Date : October 2004
 

Guest Editors:
Professor Gerard Parr
Chair in Telecommunications
Internet Technologies Research Group
School of Computing and Information Engineering
University of Ulster Coleraine Campus           
Northern Ireland
United Kingdom BT52 1SA
Tel: +44 (0) 28 70 324131
Fax: +44 (0) 28 70 324916
E.mail: gp.parr@ulster.ac.uk
 
Dr David Robinson
Senior Engineer/Scientist
KIS COM MSIN
QinetiQ, Malvern, PC316
United Kingdom
 
LTC Dr. Erdal Cayirci
Director of Combat Models Operations Department
Turkish War Colleges
Yeni Levent, 80625 Istanbul
Turkey
 
Dr Jadranka  Alilovic-Curgus
Research Scientist
Boeing Research Laboratories
The Boeing Company
Seattle, USA
 
Dr. David H. Hughes
Physicist
US Air Force Research Laboratories /IFGC
525 Brooks Rd.
Rome, New York, USA