An integrated robust and auto-configurable network service protocol suite for Airborne Networks

The key contribution of the work herein described is an integrated network service architecture for airborne networks (ANs), wherein a set of robust and auto-configurable network service mechanisms are designed to handle network dynamics and bandwidth constraints in AN environments. Instead of covering all possible network services, address configuration and name resolution are addressed in this paper. For address configuration, the designed IP address auto-configuration mechanism provides automatic conflict-free address assignment with bandwidth-efficiency. Additionally, it is integrated with a domain maintenance mechanism to further support network dynamics, such as domain splitting and merging. For naming service, the concept of Domain Name System (DNS) is extended by adding dynamic server configurations and linkages to enhance its robustness and efficiency. Both the address configuration and name resolution services have been evaluated, and the simulation results demonstrate their promising performance.