Extending NCTUns simulator to support mobile networks

NCTUns is a Linux based network simulator/emulator which has a great deal of features such as the possibility to execute real world applications without modifications, and provision to model a wide range of network devices using real TCP/IP network stack. However NCTUns only supports simulation/emulation of mobile hosts instead of mobile networks. Hence, using the conventional NCTUns, it is not possible to model more elaborated scenarios, including C4I2SR systems which have mobile networks, for example, aircrafts with internal embedded networks communicating with external networks (terrestrial control center). Motivated by this restriction, we propose and describe an extension of NCTUns in order to allow the modeling and emulation of systems which require two instances of NCTUns. The extension allows the emulation of C4I2SR systems scenarios with video stream and composed of mobile networks using distributed computers. The approach permits improving the confidence on the modeling.