Airborne network evaluation: challenges and high fidelity emulation solution

The future AN is envisioned as an IP-based hierarchical network with heterogeneous nodes and waveforms. Due to its highly dynamic nature and bandwidth constraints, new AN technologies are needed to provide reliable network operations with similar levels of mission support as in terrestrial networks. This article first identifies challenges in designing and evaluating AN technologies and then describes an ongoing effort to develop a realistic wireless testing and performance evaluation platform for ANs. A set of use cases are presented to illustrate how high fidelity emulation can be used to evaluate new architectures and protocols in AN environments.