An urban warfare application of systems engineering for the first derivative

In an effort related to urban operations, the United States Army has funded a research project for the University of Virginia (UVA) that includes the design and development of a reconfigurable information management system (RIMS) mission-specific deployments of unattended sensors. Using a highly flexible networking technology called HyperCast, the RIMS project hopes to provide information in a dynamic and adaptable fashion over disparate networks (Liebeherr 1999). As an early step in the RIMS, project, an experiment was performed to evaluate the prototype system's ability to be reconfigured and setup in different scenarios. By testing the time to configure and install the prototype, this experiment helps indicate the current system's ability to rapidly adjust. These results will act as an initial indication that the application of the reconfigurable concept can enhance the ability to rapidly set-up systems on a mission-specific basis.