Network Services for a Dynamic Wireless Airborne Network

The Department of Defense is planning to develop an IP-based Airborne Network (AN) to interconnect mobile airborne platforms with existing and planned space and terrestrial networks. Network services, such as, name to address translation, dynamic address assignment, and time synchronization are essential to the smooth operation of the internet and are normally provided invisibly by protocols such as, Domain Name Service (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and Network Time Protocol (NTP) respectively. Unfortunately, these existing IP based protocols are ill-suited for use in the airborne environment which is characterized by lossy and intermittent connectivity. We explore the use of shared information spaces to provide the fundamental coordination and caching of data for a novel implementation of DHCP and DNS. This new implementation works on the lossy airborne network because that is its natural environment.