A hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) network simulator for analysis and evaluation of large-scale military wireless communication systems

In this paper, we describe the architecture of a hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) network simulation based testbed developed by L-3 CSW and illustrate its benefits towards effective and cost efficient design, implementation, and qualification of military wireless networks. The HWIL Network Simulator solves the challenges of large-scale network analysis and evaluation by providing network designers and testers a controlled, repeatable process for measuring operational performance characteristics of deployable networking software and hardware components. The HWIL Network Simulator system exercises, or stresses the logic and functionality of networking systems as they would be in actual military use. The HWIL Network Simulator system also comprehensively instruments (logs) both the stressing stimuli and the networking systempsilas response to induced stressing stimuli. The simulator has been used in the evaluation process of L-3psilas distributive proactive network management service ldquoInter-Platform Communications Mangerrdquo (IPCM) and qualification of its military wireless ad-hoc networking systems such as MR-TCDL. The simulator was able to discover critical memory access errors in the IPCM code that would have not been discovered by hardware emulators, yet would have seriously compromised a full scale flight test and deployment success. In addition, the HWIL network simulator was essential to finding other significant problems during analysis, which we shall discuss in this paper.