TNT: A Tactical Network Test Platform to Evaluate Military Systems Over Ever-Changing Scenarios

Abstract

This paper addresses the challenge of testing military systems and applications over different communication scenarios with both network conditions and user data flows changing independently. We assume that systems developed to handle ever-changing communication scenarios are more likely to be reliable and robust during real military operations. Therefore, we propose the Tactical Network Test (TNT) platform to automate the evaluation of military systems and applications over real military radios using a reproducible test methodology. TNT has four main goals (i) the creation of QoS-constrained data flows; (ii) the execution of models to change network conditions; (iii) the automation of experiments to quantify the performance of military systems over ever-changing communication scenarios; and (iv) the monitoring of quantitative metrics and performing data analysis. Our platform was used to execute experiments in a VHF network by sending uniformly distributed data flows during seven different communication scenarios, either generated by a stochastic model or mobility models. The experimental results are used to discuss the military system's performance by quantitative analysis using network metrics, and the test scenario characterization using mobility metrics.

Software Platform for the Comprehensive Testing of Transmission Protocols Developed in GNU Radio

“…Several researchers have also considered the testing of communication protocols in challenging wireless communication systems. In [35], the testing of military systems and applications in different communication scenarios is discussed, including changing network conditions and data flow parameters. The paper proposes a test platform that uses reproducible test methodologies to allow automated testing of military systems and applications over actual military radio equipment.…”