ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper presents a method for managing a Mixed Network with multiple ground stations and Test Articles (TA) preferences. The main difference between a Ground Station (cellular) network and the over the horizon (ad-hoc) network is that the ad-hoc method has no fixed infrastructure. This paper presents the computation and performance of a clustering technique for mobile nodes within the simulated mixed network environment with multiple ground stations and users preferences for those ground stations. This includes organization for multiple ground stations and for TA's gravitating toward a ground station of their choice on the basis of service and performance.

ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper presents a methodology for the management of interference and spectrum for iNET. It anticipates a need for heavily loaded test environments with Test Articles (TAs) operating over the horizon. In such cases, it is anticipated that fixed and ad hoc networks will be employed, and where spectrum reuse and interference will limit performance. The methodology presented here demonstrates how this can be accomplished in mixed networks.

ITC/USA 2010 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Sixth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 25-28, 2010 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper presents a model for Quality of Service (QoS) management in a mix of fixed Ground Station (GS) and ad-hoc telemetry networks, and introduces an enhanced clustering scheme that jointly optimizes the performance of the network using multiple distance measures based on the location of the wireless nodes and the traffic level. It also demonstrates that a "power" performance measure is an effective tool for modeling and managing QoS in Mixed Networks. Simulation results show that significant QoS performance improvements can be obtained and maintained even under severe traffic conditions.

ITC/USA 2011 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Seventh Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2011 / Bally's Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper presents a method for the management of mixed networks as envisioned in future iNET applications and develops a scheme for global optimal performance for features that include signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Quality of service (QoS), and Interference. This scheme demonstrates potential for significant enhancement of performance for dense traffic environments envisioned in future telemetry applications. Previous research conducted at Morgan State University has proposed a cellular and Ad hoc mixed network for optimum capacity and coverage using two distance measures: QoS and SNR. This paper adds another performance improvement technique, interference, as a third distance measure using an analytical approach and using extensive simulation with MATLAB. This paper also addresses solutions where performance parameters are correlated and uncorrelated. The simulations show the optimization of mixed network nodes using distance, traffic and interference measures all at one time. This has great potential in mobile communication and iNET.

ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / Spectrum efficiency is the key challenge in modern telemetry systems. Network telemetry requires moving from a dedicated link structure to a network structure which is a very complex problem and requires spectrum management tools. A mixed network structure has been previously proposed for networked telemetry which employs a combination of cellular and Adhoc networks. Significant improvements in QoS and clustering of the complex aeronautical networks have been observed and published in several venues. However in the earlier work routing within the Ad-hoc clusters has not been addressed and the clustering has been done using an enhanced K-means clustering. In this paper, a well known clustering algorithm is adopted in the mixed network concept and clustering of the Ad-hoc nodes are optimized based on shortest route to the gateway and minimum hop count criteria. The proposed clustering technique in this paper leads to a jointly optimized cluster-topology and gateway-selection solution a complex aeronautical network. Simulation results towards the end of this paper illustrate that with the proposed method, cluster configuration is locally optimized and the best gateway for each cluster is successfully selected. With addition of traffic measures to the consideration in the routing, the proposed solution will leads to efficient spectrum allocation and improved QoS.

ITC/USA 2008 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Fourth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 27-30, 2008 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / The integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry effort (iNET) was launched to create a telemetry network that will enhance the traditional point-to-point telemetry link from test articles (TAs) to ground stations (GS). Two of the critical needs identified by the Central Test and Evaluation Investment Program (CTEIP) are, "the need to be able to provide reliable coverage in potentially high capacity environments, even in Over-The-Horizon (OTH) settings", and "the need to make more efficient use of spectrum resources through dynamic sharing of said resources, based on instantaneous demand thereof". Research conducted at Morgan State University (MSU) has focused on providing solutions for both critical problems. The Mixed Network architecture developed by MSU has shown that a hybrid network can be used to provide coverage for TAs that are beyond the coverage area of the GS. The mixed network uses clustering techniques to partition the aggregate network into clusters or sub-networks based on properties of each TA, which currently include signal strengths, and location. The paper starts with a detailed analysis of two parameters that affect the performance of each sub-network: contention between the TAs in the mobile ad-hoc network, and queuing at the Gateway TAs that serve as the link between the mobile ad-hoc and the Cellular networks. Contention and queuing will be used to evaluate two performance (distance) measures for each sub-network: throughput and delay. We define a new distance measure known as "power", which is equal to the ratio of throughput over delay, and is used as a measure of performance of the mixed network for Quality of Service (QOS). This paper describes the analytical foundation used to prove that the "power" performance measure is an excellent tool for optimizing the clustering of a mixed network to provide QOS.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The focus of the integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) project is to enhance the current telemetry technology (IRIG106) and still maintain the reliability of the current technology. The Mixed Networking environment is composed of a wired network based on standard 802.11 and a modified wireless based on 802.11. Determining the viability of the networking scheme within the iNET project is critical. The QoS features such as delay and jitter are measures of performance specified by user conditions. These QoS features are measured against current legacy links. This paper will show a comparison of the three QoS levels (best effort, assured, and premium services) that the network provides and investigate QoS performance of the Mixed Network in the iNET environment. This will provide a framework for assessing the strength and weakness of the Mixed Network as well as scoping further research.

ITC/USA 2011 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Seventh Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 24-27, 2011 / Bally's Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper presents a method for the optimization of mixed networks that incorporates a mixed layer optimization of performance features. The expanded integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) system envisioned telemetering for large and complex networks which will require core telemetry networks with ad hoc extensions for coverage. Organizing such a network has been successfully accomplished in simulations using a K-mean clustering algorithm. This paper shows how the features of these network elements will be captured and disseminated in a real system. This management of network elements across multiple layers is characterized as cross-layer optimization. This paper will also show how such cross layer features can be combined for a globally optimum solution. It shows by example how the iNET system comprising multiple ground stations, gateways, frequency, nodes, and three performance measures can be optimized to achieve overall optimal system performance.