Throughout the entire system architecture considerable effort has been expended upon hardware, software, and firmware design to minimize propagation delay effects. These can be a natural result of voice data being accumulated and then transmitted in large data packages, such as that of the DIS PDU structures. One of the primary implementation features that is afforded by the ASTi total system solution is that it absolutely minimizes propagation delay by providing a direct connection between the network and the local DSP output function. This direct connection avoids the cumulative signal delay that derives from buffering at multiple stages. In addition, because individual terrain database interfaces as well as level of sophistication may vary from training device to training device, the Terrain Occulting feature provides a single, well defined interface structure.
Operation is straight forward.
The server provides the requested degradation information which is incorporated into the Model Builder generated propagation effects. Many radios pass digitized data as well as voice. The Tactical Data Link software allows the host computer to create data packets and route them through the ASTi radio environment and over the DIS network, where they can be received by other hosts. Full radio modeling is applied, including ranging, frequency matching, modulation type matching, fading effects, and more. This interface into the ASTi radio environment allows a unified radio environment for voice and data.