Integrating Multiple and Heterogeneous Challenged Networks -- Detailed Design and Experimental Evaluation Using Satellite Link

Motivated by the question of how to quickly transfer large-sized file if multiple and heterogeneous networks are available but each has insufficient performance for the requested task, we propose a research framework for integrating multiple and heterogeneous challenged access networks, in which long delays, heavy packet losses, and frequent disconnections are observed. An important feature of this framework is to treat the transmission of control information separately from the transmission of data information, where they are flexibly transferred on different types of communication media (network paths) in different ways. In the present paper, we describe the design of the mechanisms of this framework such as the retransmission and rate adjustment of each data flow. Then, we report a field experiment with scenarios that are different from those examined in our previous experiments. It validates our prototype implementation.