A comparison of FDD and TDD/TDMA architectures for airborne backbone network traffic

An important aspect of extending the DOD GIG into the tactical battle-space will be the development of high capacity airborne backbone IP networks. Properly designing and provisioning these networks is critically dependent on the statistical characteristics of the data flows that these networks will encounter. This paper studies the architecture of general backbone networks and airborne backbone networks through discrete event simulation methods. A network composed of FDD (frequency division duplex) links is quantitatively compared to a network composed of TDD (time division duplex) links using several criteria. Performance models for both architectures when carrying conventional and self-similar traffic were developed. The effectiveness of provisioning with open loop control was quantified as well as dynamic bandwidth allocation with closed loop control.