Tactical Network Integration Test Framework

Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) will play a significant role in future tactical military networks. These tactical networks are required to support military operations and communications on-the-move in an environment characterized by frequent changes in network topology, time varying bandwidth, interference and intermittent link blockage. The self-forming and self-healing nature of MANETs is therefore advantageous in a tactical military network. The DoD's evolving tactical network architecture is expected to extend Global Information Grid (GIG) services to the forward edge. To accomplish this, it will be necessary to interconnect heterogeneous tactical networks. The potential challenges associated with connecting heterogeneous mobile, tactical networks motivated the development of the Tactical Network Integration Test Framework at MIT Lincoln Laboratory (LL). MIT LL has developed a simulation and emulation environment suitable to study network and routing architecture configuration at the "seams" between heterogeneous tactical networks. The Tactical Network Integration Test Framework is comprised of three separate test environments that we term simulation, high fidelity emulation, and scalable emulation. In this paper we will describe each of the three test environments. We will also show that the combination of these three test environments allows us to look at both interoperability on a small number of high fidelity emulation nodes, and performance at scale in both the simulation and scalable emulation environments. The validation of these three test environments, which was performed by comparing the results from similar tests that were executed on all three, will also be presented.