Surrogate Joint Aerial Layer Network (JALN) Experiment: Applications of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf Technologies for Researching Future JALN Challenges.

摘要

This report documents the results of experiments performed to demonstrate use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) wireless networking technology as a surrogate for military-grade networking equipment in the investigation of Joint Aerial Layer Network (JALN) concepts. Field measurements were performed at the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL's) Newport Test Facility using a scaled-down JALN architecture. A number of static ground nodes were linked using a variety of COTS wireless bridges and access points which is provided communication channels at of different frequency and capacity. In addition, a Mini-Common Data Link (Mini-CDL) radio was utilized for making side-by-side performance comparisons of COTS and military wireless technology. Measurements were made to a assess link capacity by incrementally increasing channel utilization. Varying amounts of text, voice and video data were transferred between network nodes and the data rates were recorded. Results are presented and the implications for testing network operations are discussed.