BiblioScholar Attaining Realistic Simulations of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET) are comprised of wireless systems that communicate without the assistance of centrally managed routers or base stations. MANET research and development has increased due to computing technologies offering smaller, faster, smarter, and more power efficient platforms to operate on. Largely the testing and evaluation of new and existing MANET protocols has resided in simulation environments. This is due in part to the complexities and expenses incurred when conducting real world tests. Many researchers have come to recognize that these current simulations tend to assume away critical components of the MANET domain. These assumptions are made either to simplify the physical layer of the simulation so that the protocol can be tested or out of necessity because the current simulation platforms are not capable of providing a more realistic physical layer simulation environment. This thesis is focused on addressing these assumptions that affect the physical layer of the MANET protocol by gathering data in the real world and then modifying the simulation environment to model as closely as possible to the gathered results. This modified environment is then compared to the basic MANET simulation environment by analyzing packet delivery and propagation effects of both models.