Abstract
This thesis focuses on making a platform independent application for reporting observations and positions of users/units moving out in the terrain. This application is intended for use on smart devices, i.e., smartphones and tablets. It is especially the iOS and Android operating systems (OS s) we focus on, which are respectively owned and managed by Apple and Google. What we want is for the application to work in Disconnected, Intermittent, Limited (DIL) environments. Simply speaking, DIL environments are networks where the user will experience loosing the connection from time to time, and find the network to be quite slow or unresponsive. We focus on running our application on iOS and Android devices in a military defense context, due to the fact that these civilian commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) mobile devices are cheap, yet very powerful sensor platforms. These are also available at a much lower cost than military hardware. Additionally, a lot of users are already familiar with such devices, and need little training in how to operate them. This makes a platform independent approach quite reasonable. Several approaches for implementing this kind of application already exist. However, in this thesis we use the PhoneGap framework to add the concept of platform independence. Most of the earlier research on operating in DIL environments focus on using SOAP-based Web services for communication purposes. In this thesis, we use the Representational State Transfer (REST) communication pattern, which is not extensively done before. We also connect our application to an existing proprietary solution, Collective Environment Interpretation (CEI). In addition, we demonstrate how our solution can be used towards a SOAP-based infrastructure with a wrapper server. The evaluation of our experiments yielded both promising and successful results. The majority of testing was carried out on the functionality and performance of our application. In the DIL environments, we experienced either complete success or limited success. All in all, the tests were successful. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) was also tested, and it resulted in quite constructive feedback along with suggestions of potential improvements.