NRL Mobile Network Emulator
Abstract
There is a flurry of recent scientific activity in the study of future information networking systems, especially in the area of mobile, wireless networking for more autonomous operations. While numerous simulation environments and models have been developed for mobile routing and networking analysis, there is a growing interest in the development of a real-low-cost, flexible wireless mobile internetwork protocol (IP) test environment that provides flexible, dynamic topology control and manipulation. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Mobile Network Emulator (MNE) does this. The test suite also provides direct and indirect support for node motion control and modeling. Along with an overview of our mobile emulator design, we describe developed methods and ancillary tools for mobile network analysis and performance studies. The emulation environment has been implemented with widely available, off-the-shelf commercial hardware within a commercial open source environment; low operating cost and flexibility were primary goals. The tool allows experimenter, developers, and researchers to test actual mobile networking technology and scenarios under more controlled laboratory conditions with low cost and repeatability. In this report, we describe the emulation design and various software and hardware components. We also give simple examples of how the mobile emulation system has been applied with a set of ancillary visualization tools, motion generators, and network analysis tools. Finally, we discuss how this emulation environment can supplement more abstract simulation studies and more expensive and time-consuming field trials of mobile network systems and software.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 06, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA411656
Entities
People
- Jeffery W. Weston
- Joseph P. MacKer
- William Chao
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory