Comparison of Wireless Network Simulators with Multihop Wireless Network Testbed in Corridor Environment

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative study between results of a single channel multihop wireless network testbed and the network simulators ns-2 and ns-3. We explore how well these simulators reflect reality with their standard empirical radio modeling capabilities. The environment studied is a corridor causing wave-guiding propagation phenomena of radio waves, which challenges the radio models used in the simulators. We find that simulations are roughly matching with testbed results for single flows, but clearly deviate from testbed results for concurrent flows. The mismatch between simulations and testbed results is due to imperfect wireless propagation channel modeling. This paper reveals the importance of validating simulation results when studying single channel multihop wireless network performance. It further emphasizes the need for validation when using empirical radio modeling for more complex environments such as corridors.

Toward realistic WiFi simulation with smartphone “Physics”

“…Since there is always channel fluctuation and might be additional signaling overheads in real experiments, estimated throughput provides upper bounds for the measured throughput without/with the SC capability. 4 Specifically, the measured throughput can exceed the estimated throughput without the SC capability only if the device has the SC capability. Therefore, we can conclude that a device has the SC capability if the throughput of the device is greater than the estimated throughput from the simulation without the SC capability.…”

“…RELATED WORK RF parameters such as transmission power, antenna gain, and receiver sensitivity are physical characteristics which heavily affect the network performance. There are many reports which take account of the RF parameters for WiFi simulations [4][5][6]. In [4], the authors apply transmission power, antenna gain, and transmission range of D-link DWL-G122 in order to verify the simulation against testbed experiments.…”