The large number of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) simulators available nowadays, differ in their design, goals, and characteristics. Users who have to decide which simulator is the most appropriate for their particular requirements, are today lost, faced with a panoply of disparate and diverse simulators. Hence, it is obvious the need for establishing guidelines that support users in the tasks of selecting a simulator to suit their preferences and needs. In previous works, we pro-posed a generic and novel approach to evaluate networks simulators, considering a methodological process and a set of qualitative and quantitative criteria. In particularly, for WSN simulators, the criteria include relevant aspects for this kind of networks, such as energy consumption modelling and scalability capacity. The aims of this work are: (i) describe deeply the criteria related to WSN aspects; (ii) extend and update the state of the art of WSN simulators elaborated in our previous works to identify the most used and cited in scientific articles; and (iii) demonstrate the suitability of our novel methodological approach by evaluating and comparing the three most cited simulators, specially in terms of energy modelling and scalability capacities. Results show that our proposed approach provides researchers with an evaluation tool that can be used to describe and compare WSN simulators in order to select the most appropriate one for a given scenario.

There exists a variety of network simulators, used to imitate the protocols, nodes, and connections in data networks. They differ in their design, goals, and characteristics. Thus, comparing simulators requires a clear and standardized methodology. In this paper, based on a set of measurable and comparable criteria, we propose an approach to evaluate them. We validate the suggested approach with two network simulators, namely Packet Tracer and GNS3. In that regard, a test scenario is put forward on the two simulators, both in Linux and Windows environments, and their performance is monitored based on the suggested approach. This paper does not propose a method for selecting the best simulator, but it rather supplies the researchers with an evaluation tool, that can be used to describe, compare, and select the most suitable network simulators for a given scenario.

Nowadays, there exists a large number of available network simulators, that differ in their design, goals, and characteristics. Users who have to decide which simulator is the most appropriate for their particular requirements, are today lost, faced with a panoply of disparate and diverse simulators. Hence, it is obvious the need for establishing guidelines that support users in the tasks of selecting and customizing a simulator to suit their preferences and needs. In previous works, we proposed a generic and novel methodological approach to evaluate network simulators, considering a set of qualitative and quantitative criteria. However, it lacks criteria related to Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). Thus, the aim of this work is three fold: (i) extend the previous proposed methodology to include the evaluation of WSN simulators, such as energy consumption modelling and scalability; (ii) elaborate a study of the state of the art of WSN simulators, with the intention of identifying the most used and cited in scientific articles; and (iii) demonstrate the suitability of our novel methodology by evaluating and comparing three of the most cited simulators. Our novel methodology provides researchers with an evaluation tool that can be used to describe and compare WSN simulators in order to select the most appropriate one for a given scenario.

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