Testing android devices for tactical networks: A hybrid emulation testbed approach

Commercial cellular phones, such as Android-based smart phones, are being introduced into the U.S. military battlefield. The use of such devices in the military contexts, however, often assumes different networking structures (e.g., mobile ad hoc networks) and uses different communication paradigms (e.g., IP multicast) than the commercial deployment. Testing Android-based applications for military scenarios using tethered military radios is laborious and expensive with respect to both time and resources. A laboratory testbed allowing for such testing at high fidelity is therefore much desired at both development and testing stages, prior to actual field tests such as the ongoing Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) events. This paper describes a hybrid emulation testbed approach that enables the creation of a laboratory test environment for testing military applications using both real and emulated Android devices under customizable and repeatable network scenarios. We present multiple approach variations that were designed to overcome the issues and constraints associated with different test needs.