Military radio and tactical MANET simulation
NetSim supports the simulation requirements of the defence community, including R&D of network protocols and architectures for military communication networks. Defence organisations, government agencies and the military use it to model complex, dynamic tactical networks. They predict communication performance in the theatre of operations.
Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) use a family of routing protocols that route traffic through mobile wireless networks. These networks put special requirements on routing protocols, because the radio links are unpredictable and node mobility changes the topology. NetSim simulates multi-hop, bandwidth-constrained MANETs.
Capabilities
NetSim covers the full radio fleet, from wireless planning to detailed diagnostics.
Wireless planning
Evaluate end-to-end performance metrics such as connectivity, signal quality, network formation time, throughput, latency and error.
Radio types
Hand-held, Manpack, Vehicular (AFV, ICV), Naval (Ship), and Airborne (Aircraft, Drone, Missile) radios.
Battlefield communications
Simulate voice, image, video, situational awareness, command & control messages and data over VHF, UHF, L-Band and S-Band radios, with different waveforms.
Analysis tools
Overall performance summaries, detailed statistics, plots of metrics over time, route tracing, radio measurements and diagnostics.
The tactical protocol stack
NetSim models routing, medium access, waveform and mobility, layer by layer.
Ad hoc routing
- OLSRv1 (RFC 3626), OLSRv2 (RFC 7181), AODV, DSR, ZRP
- Interconnect multiple orthogonal MANETs
TDMA and DTDMA
- TDMA: Link 16 based time division multiple access
- DTDMA: slot allocation via a GUI slot planner or algorithmically
- Variable slot size and guard time
- Dynamic node participation: nodes join or leave at runtime
Waveforms and propagation
- VHF, UHF, L-Band, S-Band. Single channel, narrow or wideband
- Modulation: GMSK, BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM, CPM, MSK
- Code rates 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 5/6. Transmit power 0.1 W to 100 W
- Range-based reachability, or pathloss, fading and shadowing
- Interface with external tools for terrain modelling
Node movement
- File-based custom patterns, Random Walk, Random Waypoint, Pedestrian, Group mobility
- Movement in all three dimensions
- Speeds up to 2000 km/hr
Single-band jammer
To model electronic warfare conditions, add a configurable interference source to the DTDMA network.
- The jammer in the NetSim DTDMA module is a single-band device that generates interference. It lowers the SINR and can cause packet errors.
- It does not take part in communication like regular nodes. NetSim models it only as an interference source.
- You can set the on and off times, with multiple on/off intervals during the simulation.
- You can set the interference range to a fixed distance, or base it on the pathloss model of the network.
- Interference occurs when the jammer frequency overlaps the transmitter frequency. The interference power depends on the overlap and the range model.
Antenna models in TDMA
The NetSim TDMA library supports omni-directional, sector and external antenna patterns.
Omni-directional
The antenna radiates equally in all directions with 0 dB gain, for uniform coverage in each direction.
Sector
A 2D parabolic pattern focuses signals in a specific direction, with configurable beamwidth, gain and front-to-back ratio. NetSim computes the gain from the angles between transmitter and receiver, with orientation, distance and the boresight angle.
External patterns (CSV)
Use measured or predefined antenna patterns from a CSV file of gain values for azimuth angles Phi (0 to 360 degrees). At runtime, NetSim computes the Phi angle between transmitter and receiver and looks up the matching gain, separately for each end.
Extend the protocol stack
NetSim ships with protocol source code in C. Modify the stack and develop your own custom protocols and waveforms.
Related applications
These pages apply NetSim to specific defence communication scenarios.