Advances in Inter - Vehicle Communications Systems and Potential Military Applications

Background The traditional distributed system was first introduced approximately 20 years ago using fixed infrastructure [1]. Since then nomadic distributed systems have gone on to combine wireless edges with a fixed core infrastructure, where the load is primarily carried on the fixed infrastructure [1]. In this regime, the periphery of the communications system is composed of wireless devices potentially using a combination of Bluetooth, 802.11/WiFi, and similar technologies; these in turn connect to a fixed central infrastructure, composed predominantly of dedicated physical wire links of various types, potentially with a small proportion of point-to-point wireless technologies (e.g. microwave).