| Abstract |
Through the separation of control and data planes, software defined networking (SDN) allows a network to be effectively controlled via a logically centralized controller with a global network view. Researchers have started to explore the potentials for introducing SDN to mobile tactical edge networks (MTEN), where moving devices communication through wireless channels. However, SDN was originally developed for wired in- frastructures. Its efficiency in MTEN is substantially jeopardized due to the unpredictable state of wireless links and frequent topology changes. In this paper, we design a novel hierarchical, self-organizing SDN architecture for mobile tactical edges. In this architecture, a network is dynamically partitioned into multiple temporary domains in a self-organizing manner. In each domain, a certain node is appointed as a local SDN controller for managing all other nodes in the domain. To realize this architecture, we design a self-organizing network protocol, which includes a neighborhood discovery mechanism, a distributed game-theoretic network partition algorithm, and an abstraction of dynamics. It supports the dynamic adjustment of network partitions and the local controller placement for each domain with a low (re)configuration time, hence ensures the efficiency of the hierarchical SDN architecture in MTEN. |