Military IP Wireless Networks

Dr. Larisa Tsirinsky

Agenda

IP over wireless. General

Military vs. civilian IP networks

Standartization of military IP networks

Compliance with International Standards

COTS Interoperable Equipment

Military Performance (Time critical and/or Mission

critical)

Summary

Communication Standards

Control networks

Accessibility

Security

Safety

Quality of service

Created by several standard organizations

(ITU, IETF, IEEE, )

Implementation ready

Network Equipment

Comply with international standards

Interoperable

Available

Non-expensive

Validated and inspected

Verified by millions of users

IP over Wireless

Universal Internet Connections

Main problems

High latency

High BER

Bandwidth Variations

Link Losses

Security issues

Military Networks

Yet Additional Problems

Unstable end-to-end connectivity between source and destination

Limited bandwidth allowance per source and/or destination

Strict prioritization requirements

Hard real-time requirements

Traffic and protocols restrictions because of special military network devices (gateways, encoders, firewalls, etc.)

No implementation ready standards

Standartization Approach

Protocol Ruggedization

Gateway between open network architecture

and military network requirements

Fully transparent to other network entities

Does not interfere the network traffic

Negligible latency

Civilian networks become military

Operational Environment (Example)

Main Functionality Monitoring of the uplink/downlink traffic

Detection of network events (e.g.

source/destination addresses, pre-defined

message sequences, data patterns,)

Pre-defined services upon detection of

network events

Fast recovery after a communication loss

Services

Bandwidth management Not to exceed Data Link Capacity

Adjustment to the Variable Data Link Bandwidth

Traffic shaping Smoothing

Data Link requirement for an equal distribution of the traffic. E.g., Total BW 50 Mbps and smoothing interval 5 msec mean that about 250 Kb should be sent every 5 msec

Stuffing

May be used if the total downlinked/uplinked traffic is less than

minimal Data Link requirement

Filler data packets are generated to stuff the traffic

Services (contd)

Bandwidth per channel (source IP, port & destination IP, port)

Strict allocation each channel uses only its pre-allocated BW

Best effort - extra traffic may be sent on account of other channel(s)

Dropping Policy

Time of Life (ToL)

Defines the size of internal buffer to keep the extra traffic

If the real traffic is constantly bigger than the allowed traffic

during ToL interval the extra packets should be dropped

according to channel priority and

Order of packets dropping

Oldest packet is dropped first

Newest packet is dropped first

Services (contd)

1. Each channel has its own queue2. The scheduler arranges the packets by their priority and

delivers them to the transmitting buffer

Priority

Services (contd) Guaranteed Delivery and Order Control

UDP transport is most commonly used for IP over wireless

Connectionless unreliable transport

Fast packets delivery time (compare to TCP)

No flow control!

No sequencing!

Optimized TCP may be applied only to selected

traffic (channels)

Internal handshakes are implemented between source

and destination gateways

Allow to avoid packet loss and out-of-order packets

for selected traffic

Services (contd)

Network Traffic Redirection

Direct traffic to external devices

Transmit unicast to multiple IP destinations

Convert unicast to multicast

Redirect traffic selectively, based on policy, to

avoid service device overload

Services (contd)

Load Balancing

More than one wireless channels are available

Traffic may be sent to the predefined channel or to

the automatically selected channel according to:

Available Bandwidth

Average Data Transportation Time

Channel delays

Additional Services

On-line management and control

Statuses

Alerts

Alarms

Re-configuration

Encryption of selected traffic

IPSec protocols

Traffic Routing

Additional Services (contd)

Protocol Conversion MIL-STD-1553 IP RS IP HOTLINK IP Analog Video V2oIP

Typical IP over wireless military

network

Summary

Military networks become standard and fully

interoperable

Plenty of cheap COTS network equipment is

available

Dramatically reduced number of failures,

development cost and time to market

Compliance with international standards

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