Hardware in loop simulation for emergency communication mobile ad hoc network

For the research of mobile Ad hoc network (MANET), hardware in the loop simulation (HILS) is introduced to improve simulation fidelity. The architectures and frameworks of HILS system are discussed. Based on HILS and QualNet network simulator, two kinds of simulation frameworks for MANET multicast emergency communication network are proposed. By running simulation under this configuration and doing experiments with on-demand multicast routing protocol (ODMRP), unicast and multicast functions of this protocol are tested. Research results indicate that HILS method can effectively reduce the difficulty of system modeling and improve precision of simulation, and can further accelerate transition from design to system deployment.