An Overview of MANETs Simulation:
Abstract
Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) are dynamic networks populated by mobile stations. Stations in MANETs are usually laptops, PDAs or mobile phones. These devices feature Bluetooth and/or IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) network interfaces and communicate in a decentralized manner. Mobility is a key feature of MANETs. Because of their high cost and their lack of flexibility of such networks, experimentation is mostly achievable through simulation. Numerous tools exist for MANETs simulation, including ns-2 and GloMoSim which are the two most popular ones. This paper provides a State of the Art of MANETs simulators and associated simulation techniques. First it gives an overview of the domain. Then it provides a map of the main characteristics that MANETs simulation tools should feature and the current support of these. Finally, a description for each simulator is provided, including an explanation of what make them appealing solutions.
1 Introduction
Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are networks composed of a set of communicating
devices able to spontaneously interconnect without any preexisting infrastructure. Devices in range can communicate in a point-to-point fashion. In addition to that, these devices are generally mobile.
More and more people are interested in ad hoc networks. Not only their importance in military applications is growing, but also their impact on business is increasing. The wide spread of lightweight and low-cost mobile devices—we are talking about mobile phones, PDAs, Pocket PCs, etc—which now embed Bluetooth and WiFi (IEEE 802.11) network adapters enable the spontaneous
creation of city-wide MANETs. These networks could then constitute the infrastructure of numerous applications such as emergency and health-care systems [44], groupware [18], gaming [61][31][57], advertisements, customerto-customer applications (like the UbiBay project [30]), etc.
Investigating MANETs is achievable by resorting either to software-based simulators or to experimentation networks (testbeds). Most researchers favour simulators as the expense of testbeds. What prevents (or at least hinders) the use of real-size testbeds is their cost and their inherent lack of flexibility. This becomes particularly impeding as the size of the experimented network grows. Software-based simulation then turns out to be a viable alternative and a widely used solution. This article surveys MANETs simulators. It is organized as follows: In section 2 testbeds solutions are over viewed, although they do not constitute the focus of this paper. Next in section 3, crucial
aspects of MANETs simulation are exposed. The techniques employed to implement them are described. Then in section 4, a list of the documented simulators is provided. Finally, section 5 gives some hints on which simulator to use for what needs and section 6 concludes by summarizing the current trends in MANETs simulation and by foreseeing its future directions.
Please note that this paper does not survey wired network simulators [5] and sensor network simulators [62][54]. The reason is that wired and sensor networks considerably diverge from MANETs in terms of structure, technologies, applications, etc. Thus they are considered to be out of the topic tackled herein.
Abstract
Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) are dynamic networks populated by mobile stations. Stations in MANETs are usually laptops, PDAs or mobile phones. These devices feature Bluetooth and/or IEEE 802.11 (WiFi) network interfaces and communicate in a decentralized manner. Mobility is a key feature of MANETs. Because of their high cost and their lack of flexibility of such networks, experimentation is mostly achievable through simulation. Numerous tools exist for MANETs simulation, including ns-2 and GloMoSim which are the two most popular ones. This paper provides a State of the Art of MANETs simulators and associated simulation techniques. First it gives an overview of the domain. Then it provides a map of the main characteristics that MANETs simulation tools should feature and the current support of these. Finally, a description for each simulator is provided, including an explanation of what make them appealing solutions.
1 Introduction
Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are networks composed of a set of communicating
devices able to spontaneously interconnect without any preexisting infrastructure. Devices in range can communicate in a point-to-point fashion. In addition to that, these devices are generally mobile.
More and more people are interested in ad hoc networks. Not only their importance in military applications is growing, but also their impact on business is increasing. The wide spread of lightweight and low-cost mobile devices—we are talking about mobile phones, PDAs, Pocket PCs, etc—which now embed Bluetooth and WiFi (IEEE 802.11) network adapters enable the spontaneous
creation of city-wide MANETs. These networks could then constitute the infrastructure of numerous applications such as emergency and health-care systems [44], groupware [18], gaming [61][31][57], advertisements, customerto-customer applications (like the UbiBay project [30]), etc.
Investigating MANETs is achievable by resorting either to software-based simulators or to experimentation networks (testbeds). Most researchers favour simulators as the expense of testbeds. What prevents (or at least hinders) the use of real-size testbeds is their cost and their inherent lack of flexibility. This becomes particularly impeding as the size of the experimented network grows. Software-based simulation then turns out to be a viable alternative and a widely used solution. This article surveys MANETs simulators. It is organized as follows: In section 2 testbeds solutions are over viewed, although they do not constitute the focus of this paper. Next in section 3, crucial
aspects of MANETs simulation are exposed. The techniques employed to implement them are described. Then in section 4, a list of the documented simulators is provided. Finally, section 5 gives some hints on which simulator to use for what needs and section 6 concludes by summarizing the current trends in MANETs simulation and by foreseeing its future directions.
Please note that this paper does not survey wired network simulators [5] and sensor network simulators [62][54]. The reason is that wired and sensor networks considerably diverge from MANETs in terms of structure, technologies, applications, etc. Thus they are considered to be out of the topic tackled herein.
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