HF Network Evaluation in the Alaskan Auroral Zone

The Air Force is sponsoring a project to demonstrate and evaluate HF network performance in the Alaskan auroral zone. Automatic adaptive HF radio equipment is currently being installed at several Alaskan Air Force sites to form a testbed network that will be used to evaluate improvements in HF communication reliability and connectivity in the auroral zone. Each terminal consists of the Air Force AN/URC-119 Pacer Bounce Radio interfaced with microprocessor adaptive controllers. Network control algorithms are being developed based upon a hierarchical distributed network protocol, and programmed into the adaptive terminal node control computers. Tests are in progress to evaluate system performance in the auroral region, including link establishment, message reliability, network throughput, and message routing delays. Demonstrations are planned to evaluate system performance in the Alaskan operational environment.