Evaluating the Potential of Multipath TCP in Tactical Communications

This paper investigates three promising use cases of Multipath TCP (MPTCP) in tactical communications, namely latency optimization, bandwidth aggregation, and failover handling. While MPTCP has been well studied for civilian use cases, its potential in tactical scenarios and Disconnected, Intermittent and Limited (DIL) networks is still untapped. The presented evaluation was conducted in a realistic multi-path testbed, based on the Anglova troop deployment scenario. The obtained results indicate that for all three investigated use cases a performance benefit can be achieved by the adoption of MPTCP. This paper was originally presented at the NATO Science and Technology Organization Symposium (ICMCIS) organized by the Information Systems Technology (IST) Panel, IST-205-RSY - the ICMCIS, held in Koblenz, Germany, 23–24 April 2024