The final destination: building test bed apps for DIL environments

Abstract

Recent years have seen a massive growth in the everyday use of smartphones and tablet (here called smart mobile devices or SMDs) and a turn towards app based software to connect to cloud based services. This has had a huge impact on how people access information and communicate in all spheres of life, with always online now being the default mode for most people. These changes also affect the military, albeit at a slower pace. Moving towards a diversified app-architecture for sharing and processing information has clear operational benefits [1]. However, a key differentiator between civilian and military contexts is the fact that in actual operations the military will, at least on the tactical level, operate on disadvantaged, intermittent and/or limited (DIL) networks. The IST-118 working group is exploring solutions to deal with DIL related issues, and to be able to test these as realistically as possible could be very beneficial. This paper proposes a possible solution, the MLAB App Builder developed at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). MLAB lets nondevelopers create SMD apps for Android, iOS, Windows Phones, etc. simply by using point and click. This means that polished apps can be created easily, and using built-in facilities for monitoring of user interaction will help to test everything from content filtering to offline use. Apps created in MLAB uses an architecture that allow apps to work on and offline when connections are intermittent and allow for transparent connections to external services or local substitutes.