Overview of Platine emulation testbed and its utilization to support DVB-RCS/S2 evolutions

Designing new satellite access protocols or validating innovative satellite network concepts, evaluating their performances and demonstrating them require powerful test tools to check their compliance with satellite system requirements. Obviously, such tools have to be as representative as possible of typical satellite telecom systems, but also adaptable to specific research and engineering needs. Emulation testbeds provide a cost effective solution for networking activities in complement to traditional simulations tools that are rather suited in satcom research to system dimensioning evaluation. This paper presents the Platine emulation, briefly presents major projects where is has been used, and details its architecture and main features as well as its controller unit. Finally, future perspectives are stressed, for example in the aeronautical communication context.