Inter-domain routing for military mobile networks

As more and more tactical Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) are deployed at the edge, there is a need to interconnect these heterogeneous MANETs to enable increased connectivity and robust communication services to the war fighters. Traditionally, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is considered the de facto standard inter-domain routing protocol. It was originally designed for wired networks and does not respond well to the challenges posed by mobile networks. With intermittent wireless links and frequent topology changes in tactical networks, BGP suffers from network partitioning, specifically the traditional Autonomous System (AS) split issue. One option is to re-architect the use of BGP to prevent AS splits as shown in [1]. A more scalable approach is to develop a new inter-domain routing protocol that fundamentally addresses BGP protocol limitations. The InterMR protocol proposed by UCLA dynamically detects and heals network splits. In this paper, we implement, demonstrate and evaluate the performance of interMR for connecting ground tactical MANETs with an airborne backbone. Implementation of the protocol required several design choice and adaptations. We use OPNET to compare the performance of the interMR protocol to a flat OSPF architecture and BGP with virtual routers under various mobility models. We show that InterMR heals network splits and provides a scalable approach for interconnecting MANETs.