Management and Service Discovery in Satellite and Avionic Networks

Command and control services manage network-attached assets deployed in distributed systems that can be separated by thousands of miles. Networks that rely on satellite communications to transit all data to a centralized control center are troubled by high latency due to long propagation delays to satellites and limited data transit over bandwidth constrained links. Low latency communications can be achieved by using a combination of distributed airborne and space-based systems. This research investigates how deployment of a peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay network in a region of conflict can reduce the latency for real time control and communication. This overlay network utilizes a hybrid of both satellite and aircraft links to provide services that best satisfy the immediate needs of ground units. Experiments have been performed with an emulation testbed using 147 compute nodes in the Emulab testbed to study the latency and throughput of the overlay network. The overlay network is developed using a peer-to-peer application programmers interface (API) called JXTA. Nodes simulate resources requesting and offering several types of video and data services.