Measurement-based approaches for accurate simulation of 802.11-based wireless networks

In this work, we address the issue of unrealistic simulations of wireless networks using a measurement-based approach. The idea is to use empirical modeling using measurement data as a mechanism to model physical layer behavior. We demonstrate the power of this approach for 802.11-based networks using ns2, a packet-level network simulator. Specifically, we develop two versions of the ns2 simulator that model the wireless physical layer with different levels of fidelity. In both versions, the deferral and reception model are built using measurements. For propagation modeling, one version uses direct measurements and the other uses an empirically derived model. In validation experiments with a 12-node mesh testbed, both these versions were found to be reasonably accurate (85 percentile errors within about 10% of the capacity) relative to regular simulations (85 percentile errors within 50% of capacity).