Experimental Evaluation of TCP-Based DTN for Cislunar Communications in Presence of Long Link Disruption

Delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN) technology is considered a new solution to highly stressed communications in space environments. To date, little work has been done in evaluating the effectiveness and performance of the available DTN protocols when they are applied to an interplanetary Internet, especially in presence of a long link disruption. In this paper, we present an experimental investigation of the DTN architecture with a Bundle Protocol (BP) running over TCP-based convergence layer (TCPCL) protocol in a simulated cislunar communication environment characterized by a long link disruption. The intent of this work is to investigate the effectiveness of the TCPCL-based DTN protocol in coping with long link disruptions, through realistic file transfer experiments using a PC-based test-bed. The experiment results show that the DTN protocol is effective in handling a long link disruption experienced in data transmission accompanied by a cislunar link delay and a high BER. The performance of the DTN is most adversely affected by link disruption time in comparison to the effect of link delay and BER. For the transmissions with a very long link disruption of hours, the variations in goodput are nominal with respect to the change in cislunar link delay.

[1]  Tarik Taleb,et al.  Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) Protocols for Space Communications , 2011, Delay Tolerant Networks.

[2]  Mostafa Ammar,et al.  Multicasting in delay tolerant networks: semantic models and routing algorithms , 2005, WDTN '05.

[3]  Mario Marchese,et al.  PETRA: performance enhancing transport architecture for Satellite communications , 2004, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[4]  Jon Postel,et al.  User Datagram Protocol , 1980, RFC.

[5]  Randy H. Katz,et al.  Transport protocols for Internet-compatible satellite networks , 1999, IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun..

[6]  Ruhai Wang,et al.  Unreliable CCSDS File Delivery Protocol (CFDP) over Cislunar Communication Links , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[7]  J. P. Ed,et al.  Transmission control protocol- darpa internet program protocol specification , 1981 .

[8]  T. V. Lakshman,et al.  The performance of TCP/IP for networks with high bandwidth-delay products and random loss , 1997, TNET.

[9]  Özgür B. Akan,et al.  TP-planet: a reliable transport protocol for interplanetary Internet , 2004, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[10]  Stephen Farrell,et al.  Licklider Transmission Protocol - Specification , 2008, RFC.

[11]  Scott C. Burleigh,et al.  Bundle Protocol Specification , 2007, RFC.

[12]  Mark Handley,et al.  Congestion control for high bandwidth-delay product networks , 2002, SIGCOMM '02.

[13]  Dave Stewart,et al.  Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Network Testing Using a LEO Satellite , 2008 .

[14]  Ruhai Wang,et al.  TCP Convergence Layer-Based Operation of DTN for Long-Delay Cislunar Communications , 2010, IEEE Systems Journal.

[15]  Kevin R. Fall,et al.  A delay-tolerant network architecture for challenged internets , 2003, SIGCOMM '03.

[16]  M. Barbeau,et al.  Satellite transport protocol handling bit corruption, handoff and limited connectivity , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[17]  S. Horan,et al.  Impact of Van Jacobson header compression on TCP/IP throughput performance over lossy space channels , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[18]  Ruhai Wang,et al.  Licklider Transmission Protocol (LTP)-Based DTN for Cislunar Communications , 2011, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.

[19]  Stephen Horan,et al.  Design of a space channel simulator using virtual instrumentation software , 2002, IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas..

[20]  Tarik Taleb,et al.  An explicit and fair window adjustment method to enhance TCP efficiency and fairness over multihops Satellite networks , 2004, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[21]  Donald F. Towsley,et al.  Study of a bus-based disruption-tolerant network: mobility modeling and impact on routing , 2007, MobiCom '07.

[22]  Robert C. Durst,et al.  TCP extensions for space communications , 1996, MobiCom '96.

[23]  T. J. Shepard,et al.  TCP PACKET TRACE ANALYSIS , 1991 .

[24]  Kwan Lawrence Yeung,et al.  P-XCP: a transport layer protocol for satellite IP networks , 2004, IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference, 2004. GLOBECOM '04..

[25]  Mario Gerla,et al.  On-board satellite "split TCP" proxy , 2004, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[26]  Stephen Farrell,et al.  Licklider Transmission Protocol - Motivation , 2008, RFC.

[27]  Salvatore Marano,et al.  Hop-by-Hop Local Flow Control over InterPlaNetary Networks Based on DTN Architecture , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Conference on Communications.

[28]  Ellen W. Zegura,et al.  Controlling the mobility of multiple data transport ferries in a delay-tolerant network , 2005, Proceedings IEEE 24th Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies..

[29]  Ren Wang,et al.  TCP Westwood: End-to-End Congestion Control for Wired/Wireless Networks , 2002, Wirel. Networks.

[30]  J. McKim,et al.  Saratoga: a Delay-Tolerant Networking convergence layer with efficient link utilization , 2007, 2007 International Workshop on Satellite and Space Communications.

[31]  Esther Jennings,et al.  Autonomous Congestion Control in Delay-Tolerant Networks , 2006 .

[32]  Paul A. S. Ward,et al.  Practical Routing in Delay-Tolerant Networks , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

[33]  Rabin K. Patra,et al.  Using redundancy to cope with failures in a delay tolerant network , 2005, SIGCOMM '05.

[34]  Vinton G. Cerf,et al.  Delay-Tolerant Networking Architecture , 2007, RFC.

[35]  Vinton G. Cerf,et al.  Delay-tolerant networking: an approach to interplanetary Internet , 2003, IEEE Commun. Mag..

[36]  Ruhai Wang,et al.  Window-based and rate-based transmission control mechanisms over space-Internet links , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[37]  Erling Kristiansen,et al.  TCP Noordwijk: TCP-based transport optimized for web traffic in satellite networks , 2008 .

[38]  Margaret Martonosi,et al.  Erasure-coding based routing for opportunistic networks , 2005, WDTN '05.

[39]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  TCP-Peach: a new congestion control scheme for satellite IP networks , 2001, TNET.

[40]  Özgür B. Akan,et al.  InterPlaNetary Internet: state-of-the-art and research challenges , 2003, Comput. Networks.

[41]  S. Horan,et al.  Optimal acknowledgment frequency over asymmetric space-internet links , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[42]  Hossein Falaki,et al.  Performance evaluation and analysis of delay tolerant networking , 2007, MobiEval '07.