Design of mobile routers for tactical network based on mobile ad hoc and wireless mesh networks

Abstract

To achieve information superiority in the theater of operation, establishing a robust communication infrastructure is unquestionably required from the military requirements perspective. Applying commercial technologies to tactical communication system is also a major issue in the military research area due to low development cost and short development time. In this thesis, a tactical network for a brigade-level communication system is first designed based on promising commercial technologies such as IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.16, and mobile ad hoc and wireless mesh networking. Because the tactical network is designed based on tactical structure (division, brigade, battalion, company, and platoon), it is hierarchically composed of platoon-level layer (PLL), company-level layer (CLL), battalion-level layer (BLL), brigade-level layer (BRLL), and division-level layer (DLL). As network nodes and networks move according to the operation, the range of their movement is limited in tactical networks. Major movement patterns of network nodes and networks in the tactical network are given in this thesis. Based on the proposed tactical network architecture and major movement patterns, the methods of routing and mobility management are proposed to establish a robust communication infrastructure. In addition, the frameworks of DiffServ- and SNMP-based QoS and PIM-SM-based multicast are proposed in the view of tactical network system. The proposed protocols for tactical network are implemented, and it is verified that the protocols work well in real environment. As a final result, the prototypes of mobile node, mobile router, and mesh router are designed based on the proposed protocols In addition to the design of mobile routers for the tactical network, it is required to research protocols such as routing and medium access control (MAC) in order to improve the capacity of wireless mesh network (WMN), because wireless mesh network acts as major backbone networks in the tacti...