NASA’s JPL ION Running on Single Board Computers (SBC)

Since the moment I envisioned the project to create a prototype for a R&D and education laboratory for DTN (Delay Tolerant Networking) and IPN (InterPlanetary Networking,) I set as one of my primary requirements to make it affordable and as simple as possible using off the shelf components.

I could have used a large server with multiple virtual machines, but the idea was to embed some of the nodes into a mockup representing a different element of a space mission network. I ended doing that using Legos, in some cases modifying existing models, in others just creating my own like the Mission Control Center (with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W.)

Besides some nodes that I already planned to run on a virtual machine, and others running on actual Intel based mini personal computers, I focused my search on affordable Single Board Computers (or SBC) that could run NASA’s JPL open source ION implementation of DTN.

Of course, the Raspberry Pi ended on top of the list, more so when they released the Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with comparable performance of a Raspberry Pi 3.

Why Raspberry Pi?

Price and features were a big factor, plus the ecosystem that has developed over 10+ years around it, particularly for education and experimenting, has an incredible value.

I considered other alternatives, I already had some boards in my inventory, and another goal for the laboratory was to serve as a platform to test interoperability of ION running on different platforms.

Unfortunately, with the semiconductor shortages and supply chain issues, the Raspberry Pi boards by the end of 2021 were almost impossible to procure or at exorbitant prices.

Then, the alternatives became more important.

I started procuring some that were reasonably priced, with similar features as the Raspberry Pi, most of them with ARM cpus, and very important, with support for a flavor of Lunix where I could build ION from the source code.

Overall, I didn’t find many problems to build ION, in few cases I had to tweak the original config scripts.

These changes will be included in the coming release early next year of IONe, an experimental version of ION as a branch of the original NASA code, development still leaded by Scott Burleigh (creator of ION when he worked at JPL) and as part of the work we do with the Internet Society Interplanetary Chapter (IPNSIG) Projects Group.

I also started to run performance tests to compare various boards/platforms. I will publish the results in a separate article, preliminary numbers show that the alternative boards to Raspberry Pi run substantially faster.

If you are a manufacturer or distributor of these type of boards and have interest to get it tested and added to the list, please feel free to send a message to ipndtn@ljcv.net.

I’ve been already sharing this information with various universities and research groups who are facing the same problem getting appropriate hardware for their projects. I heard that some of the Raspberry Pi products have a lead time of over a year!! Insane ☹

Here are the boards I tested up to the publication of this article.

Raspberry Pi 3B

	SoC	Broadcom BCM2837
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A53 ARMv8
	Clock	1.2GHz
	Video	HDMI
	RAM	1GB LPDDR2
	LAN	100M
	USB	4 x USB 2.0
	WiFi	b/g/n
	Bluetooth	LE
	Supported OS	RaspiOS, Ubuntu, Kali Linux …

Raspberry Pi 3B+

	SoC	Broadcom BCM2837B0
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A53 ARMv8
	Clock	1.4GHz
	Video	HDMI
	RAM	1GB LPDDR2
	LAN	GigE
	USB	4 x USB 2.0
	WiFi	b/g/n/ac
	Bluetooth	4.2, LE
	Supported OS	RaspiOS, Ubuntu, Kali Linux

Raspberry Pi 4B

	SoC	Broadcom BCM2711
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A72 ARMv8
	Clock	1.5GHz
	Video	2 x microHDMI
	RAM	1, 2, 4 or 8GB LPDDR4
	LAN	GigE
	USB	2 x USB 2.0, 2 x USB 4.0
	WiFi	b/g/n/ac
	Bluetooth	5.0, LE
	Supported OS	RaspiOS

Raspberry Pi Zero W

	SoC	Broadcom BCM2835
	CPU	Single ARM1176JZF-S
	Clock	1GHz
	Video	Mini HDMI
	RAM	512MB LPDDR2
	LAN	None
	USB	1 x OTG
	WiFi	b/g/n
	Bluetooth	4.1, LE
	Supported OS	RaspiOS

Raspberry Pi Zero 2W

	SoC	RP3A0 (Broadcom BCM2710A1)
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A53 ARMv8
	Clock	1GHz
	Video	Mini HDMI
	RAM	512MB LPDDR2
	LAN	None
	USB	1 x OTG
	WiFi	b/g/n
	Bluetooth	4.2, LE
	Supported OS	RaspiOS

Orange Pi PC

	SoC	Allwinner H3
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A7
	Clock	1.6GHz
	Video	HDMI
	RAM	1GB LPDDR3
	LAN	100M
	USB	2 x USB 2.0, 1 x OTG
	WiFi	None
	Bluetooth	None
	Supported OS	Ubuntu, Debian Buster

Banana Pi M2 Zero

	SoC	Allwinner A7H2+
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A7
	Clock	1.2GHz
	Video	Mini HDMI
	RAM	512MB LPDDR2
	LAN	None
	USB	1 x OTG
	WiFi	b/g/n
	Bluetooth	4.0
	Supported OS	Debian Buster

Banana Pi M4

	SoC	Realtek RTD1395
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A53
	Clock	1.4GHz
	Video	HDMI
	RAM	1GB LPDDR4
	LAN	100M
	USB	4 x USB 2.0
	WiFi	b/g/n/ac
	Bluetooth	4.2
	Supported OS	Debian Buster

Libre ComputerAML-S905X0-CC aka Le Potato

	SoC	Amlogic S905X
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A53
	Clock	1.512GHz
	Video	HDMI
	RAM	2GB LPDDR3
	LAN	100M
	USB	4 x USB 2.0
	WiFi	None
	Bluetooth	None
	Supported OS	Ubuntu, Debian & Raspbian Bullseye

Libre Computer ROC-RK3328-CC aka Renegade

	SoC	Rockchip RK3328
	CPU	Quad Cortex-A53
	Clock	1.4GHz
	Video	HDMI
	RAM	2GB LPDDR4
	LAN	GigE
	USB	1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0
	WiFi	None
	Bluetooth	None
	Supported OS	Ubuntu, Debian & Raspbian Bullseye

Note: on the "Supported OS" I'm showing the ones I tested, for some of the boards there are other OS available.

Disclaimer: I’m not getting any compensation or benefits from any distributor or manufacturer for the products mentioned in this article.

Until the next intergalactic communication …

Cheers
Jorge