A realistic military scenario and emulation environment for experimenting with tactical communications and heterogeneous networks

Emulation environments are an effective approach to experimenting with and evaluating network protocols, algorithms, and components. This paper describes a joint effort by the NATO Science & Technology Organization's IST-124 task group to develop and distribute an emulation environment and scenario. The most significant contribution is a vetted and militarily-realistic scenario that provides a rich combination of elements for experimentation. The scenario includes detailed mobility patterns for a battalion-sized operation over the course of two hours, which has been developed by military experts in planning and performing real exercises. The mobility patterns are used to drive the network emulation.