Performance simulation of HF subnetworks employing third generation HF link establishment protocols

This paper provides a status report and initial results of a simulation study that is under way to characterize the expected performance of HF subnetworks using the `third generation´ HF link establishment protocols defined in U.S. MIL-STD-188-141B Appendix C. To begin, a discussion of the necessity of network simulation is provided. This is followed by an overview of the simulation framework used in this study. This overview concentrates on the physical layer models used to model waveform performance in the presence of ionospheric propagation effects and interference, and also describes the implementations of the link establishment and other protocols modeled within this framework. Initial results quantifying the message delivery performance of an example HF subnetwork are presented. Finally, a brief description of future work is provided