FEP: High Fidelity Experiment Platform for Mobile Networks

Abstract

To make experiments more convenient and then quickly deploy theoretical research results to practical systems, e.g., porting multipath transmission control protocol (MPTCP) to Android, or testing real network protocols or network applications in real mobile operating systems (MOS) in mobile networks, we propose and design a high-fidelity experiment platform for mobile networks (FEP) which seamlessly connects academia and industry in the research area of mobile networks. By using FEP, engineers and researchers can share the same set of code. We implement FEP by adopting Fedora, NS-3, VirtualBox, Android, and Docker. FEP consists of two parts: real world and virtual world. The real world includes commercial off-the-shelf smartphones with MOS installed. The virtual world includes a simulation platform, and most of experiment and development works are conducted on the platform. The key point of connecting the two parts is to port a real MOS to VirtualBox, and consequently, the modified code on the simulation platform can be almost directly used in the real MOS, which is why we call it high fidelity. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time to do that. To demonstrate the high fidelity, we describe the process of porting MPTCP to Android and show a demonstration of Information System for Disaster Relief in MANET. Experimental results show that FEP has the practical value and achieves high accuracy and code high fidelity.