Implementation and performance of a network control plane for airborne networks

Airborne network (AN) backbones hold the promise of providing the persistent high-bandwidth line-of-sight (LOS) conduit that interconnects the various mission elements in a battlespace. When properly designed the control of such a backbone should make the collection of links that form the backbone appear, as much as possible, as a seamless high-bandwidth connection between mission elements communicating through it. This can be accomplished by dynamically adapting the topology of the backbone network in a manner that takes into account flow demands and communications link capacities across the entire network and by applying quality-of-service (QoS) techniques, to attain the desired performance. This goal must be satisfied despite the fact that connectivity is intermittent, nodes leave and join the network frequently, and a diverse set of communications technologies is used on the nodes that form the backbone. Accomplishing this task requires the use of control information distributed across various network layers. We use a Network Control Plane (NCP) for this purpose. A communications architecture designed specifically for the Airborne Network problem has been prototyped and characterized using simulation and emulation. During flight tests conducted in August of 2006, many of the prototyped concepts were verified in a 3-node airborne network backbone based on directional RF links. In this paper we describe the infrastructure evaluation portion of the flight tests and implementation of the prototyped AN architecture in the 3-node backbone, with emphasis on the Network Control Plane. Measured end-to-end performance obtained from data gathered during the experiment is presented.