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Challenge Overview

Project Overview

Welcome to the NASA Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) project. DTN is an approach to computer network architecture that seeks to address the technical issues in heterogeneous networks that may lack continuous network connectivity.

Note that some literature may use the term Delay Tolerant Network which is also abbreviated as DTN - the two terms are used interchangeably.

DTN is designed to provide reliable end-to-end delivery of information between nodes, and to do so in an environment that experiences frequent connectivity disruptions and topology changes. Such a capability will directly support human and robotic space exploration, as well as have wide applicability to land-mobile and airborne terrestrial communications.

Learn more about DTN

Competition Overview

The goal of this challenge is to architect the proposed solution to the key exchange problem so that competitors in downstream development challenges will have one definitive document to refer to as we build out a working implementation.

Competition Requirements

This challenge differs from standard architecture challenges in a couple of ways:

  • the contest input is non-standard i.e. there is only a specification document and no UI in the form of wireframes or storyboards. The target is a console-based application.

  • strong experience with cryptographic and distributed computing concepts is required to properly understand all of the contest input.

Contest Input

  • You may want to familiarize yourself with the expanded problem statement problem statement which was used to ellicit the 3-part solution in the contest input.

  • The specification that combined the solution to Parts 1 - 3 is attached in the forum.

Review Criteria

Conciseness. Your submission must be written in clear and concise language so that it can easily be understood by developers who have little or not experience with the Byzantine Generals' Problem (BGP).
Coherence. Your submission should organize the 3-part solution into chapters. You should begin each chapter with a high level overview and each chapter and/or section must follow the preceeding one in a logical way.
Consistency. All definitions, notations and formatting must be consistent.
Clarity. You are expected to augment the illustrations in each solution with illustrations of your own. Non-trivial algorithm discussions should be accompanied with pseudocode and/or diagrams.

Keep in mind that all downstream contests specified in your submission will proceed straight to assembly.

Submission Deliverables

  • System Design Specification (SDS) document written in an MS Word compatible document.

  • Class and sequence diagrams authored using the TopCoder UML tool or MS Visio.

Please download the templates on which to base your submission on from here.

Important Note
The sample scenarios/node examples mentioned in the provided documents are based on current missions, whereas, the system we're developing will be used for future missions, so your submission needs to account for this. Be creative!

Review Style
Please note that submissions will be reviewed by the client's subject matter experts, as a result, the contest will not affect your rating or reliability.

Final Deliverable

Your final deliverable should address all of the competition requirements listed in 1.1.1.
Please submit, in a compressed archive:

  • a MS Word compatible document;

  • the original source files of diagrams used to illustrate your document (if any).

Additional Documentation Provided

Document

Link

DTN introductory tutorial

Delay Tolerant Networks - A Tutorial

Supporting document - (DTN) networks

Rationale Scenarios and Requirements for DTN In Space

Supporting document - (DTN) security

Space Mission Key Management Concepts

To learn about the meaning of words, terms and abbreviations specific to DTN, please refer to the Glossary



Final Submission Guidelines

1. Third Party Code/Libraries - All third party code/libraries must be open source and you must include the license in your submission. The license must allow us to modify/re-package the code as necessary. If you have any questions regarding this, please post in the forums. Submissions that include third party code without the proper license information will be disqualified if the third party code is found to be non-usable due to license restrictions.

2. Attribution/References- You must properly attribute and or reference any sentences, paragraphs or quotes that you cite in your text-based submission. If your submission is found to include text that has been copied and pasted from an online source without properly attributing the source, you will receive a not-so-nice email from the topcoder competition manager.

3. Spell Check - We understand that not all submitters will be native English speakers and that there will be spelling/grammatical mistakes. We request that you first run your submission through a grammar/spell checker before submission so as to fix simple mistakes.

REVIEW STYLE:

Final Review:

Community Review Board

Approval:

User Sign-Off

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