Challenges in the Verification of Mobile Ad Hoc Networking Systems

Abstract

Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) techniques are critical to the success of emerging modern warfare concepts and are required to support communications for mobile military platforms, including ships, aircrafts, and ground vehicles operating in a highly dynamic and mobile tactical communications network without fixed infrastructure. Research in Mobile Ad Hoc Networking has increased dramatically over the last few years with significant work in hardware architectures, media access and routing protocols. Until now, most of the work has been in simulation and small-scale laboratory demonstrations due to the significant resources required to implement an actual network with sufficient nodes to fully exercise the capabilities of both the hardware and software. There is significant need to develop testbeds to fully understand the behavior of ad hoc networks, performance under real-world application scenarios. This paper describes a testbed for a real system application exercised in an outdoor environment which approximates very closely the physical operational environment. The ad hoc network performance results include throughput and delay under conditions of mobility and foliage.