Overview and application of a modeling and simulation environment to support protocol performance evaluations in mobile communications networks

This paper describes an M&S Environment that was developed and is currently being used in support of the DARPA Future Combat System Communications (FCS-C) technology program and the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program, and an example of its application. This M&S Environment supports the performance evaluation of the full range of emerging communications technologies against the backdrop of operational scenarios having traffic profiles comprised of IERs and threads and accounts for foliage and terrain-induced path attenuation. For the example analysis, we evaluate a sample device model, which includes both a unicast and a multicast routing protocol, along with 802.11, for a given scenario and show some of the types of results available. We discuss the scenario evaluated, the OPNET network model generated by the M&S Environment, its execution and results.