Real-time HSPA emulator for end-to-edge QoS evaluation in all-IP beyond 3G heterogeneous wireless networks

This paper is aimed at presenting the real-time High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) emulator that has been developed in the framework of the AROMA project. Real-time emulators allow reproducing realistic scenarios to test algorithms, strategies, protocols and applications under realistic conditions. Therefore, real-time emulators constitute a powerful tool to evaluate the end-user’s Quality of Experience (QoE), which could not be achieved by means of off-line simulations. The presented emulator is integrated in the AROMA realtime testbed, which has been developed to provide a framework for demonstrating the benefits of the common radio resource management algorithms as well as the proposed endto-edge Quality of Service (QoS) management techniques developed for all-IP beyond 3G heterogeneous wireless networks in the context of the AROMA project. This paper presents a qualitative description of the developed tool, emphasizing some interesting implementation details that may result helpful in the development of similar emulation platforms. Some illustrative results, showing the capabilities of the developed tool, are also presented and analyzed.