Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Towards Accurate Bit Error Simulation in Wireless Sensor Networks Including Environmental Influences

  • Regular Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Computer Science and Technology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Simulation is a common technique for the evaluation of new approaches and protocols in networked systems and provides many benefits. However, it is also well known that the relevance of the simulation results for real-world applications depends on the various models which are used within the simulation, e.g., for the characteristics of the radio communication. In this paper, we introduce the Extended Multipath Raytracing Model, an extension to the ray-tracing radio medium available in Cooja, to improve the modelling of wireless links in simulated Wireless Sensor Networks. Our extension allows the simulation of environmental influences onto links on a per node basis, allowing the analysis of various effects observed in experiments in a virtual environment. Furthermore, the packet-based modelling of transmission errors is extended to provide the simulation of bit errors, allowing new usage scenarios, like the simulation of error detection and Forward Error Correction codes in Cooja.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Calhoun B H, Daly D C, Verma N, Finchelstein D F, Wentzloff D D, Wang A, Cho S H, Chandrakasan A P. Design considerations for ultra-low energy wireless microsensor nodes. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 2005, 54(6): 727-740.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Hartung R, Kulau U, Gernert B, Rottmann S, Wolf L. On the experiences with testbeds and applications in precision farming. In Proc. the 1st ACM International Workshop on the Engineering of Reliable, Robust, and Secure Embedded Wireless Sensing Systems, November 2017, pp.54-61.

  3. Fang X W, Bate I. Issues of using wireless sensor network to monitor urban air quality. In Proc. the 1st ACM International Workshop on the Engineering of Reliable, Robust, and Secure Embedded Wireless Sensing Systems, November 2017, pp.32-39.

  4. Jackson G, Gallacher S, Wilson D, McCann J A. Tales from the wild: Lessons learned from creating a living lab. In Proc. the 1st ACM International Workshop on the Engineering of Reliable, Robust, and Secure Embedded Wireless Sensing Systems, November 2017, pp.62-68.

  5. Gungor V C, Lu B, Hancke G P. Opportunities and challenges of wireless sensor networks in smart grid. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, 2010, 57(10): 3557-3564.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Bannister K, Giorgetti G, Gupta S K. Wireless sensor networking for “hot” applications: Effects of temperature on signal strength, data collection and localization. In Proc. the 5th Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors, June 2008.

  7. Chong C Y, Kumar S P. Sensor networks: Evolution, opportunities, and challenges. Proceedings of the IEEE, 2003, 91(8): 1247-1256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Anastasi G, Falchi A, Passarella A, Conti M, Gregori E. Performance measurements of motes sensor networks. In Proc. the 7th ACM International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems, October 2004, pp.174-181.

  9. Thelen J, Goense D, Langendoen K. Radio wave propagation in potato fields. In Proc. the 1st Workshop on Wireless Network Measurements, April 2005.

  10. Boano C A, Tsiftes N, Voigt T, Brown J, Roedig U. The impact of temperature on outdoor industrial sensornet applications. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 2010, 6(3): 451-459.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Wennerström H, Hermans F, Rensfelt O, Rohner C, Norden L Å. A long-term study of correlations between meteorological conditions and 802.15.4 link performance. In Proc. the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communications and Networking, June 2013, pp.221-229.

  12. Boano C A, Wennerström H, Zuniga M A, Brown J, Keppitiyagama C, Oppermann F J, Roedig U, Norden L Å, Voigt T, Römer K U. Hot packets: A systematic evaluation of the effect of temperature on low power wireless transceivers. In Proc. the 2013 Extreme Conference on Communication, August 2013, pp.7-12.

  13. Schmidt F, Ceriotti M, Hauser N, Wehrle K. If you can’t take the heat: Temperature effects on low-power wireless networks and how to mitigate them. In Proc. the 12th European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks, February 2015, pp.266-273.

  14. Sundani H, Li H Y, Devabhaktuni V, Alam M, Bhattacharya P. Wireless sensor network simulators: A survey and comparisons. International Journal of Computer Networks, 2011, 2(5): 249-265.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Imran M, Said A M, Hasbullah H. A survey of simulators, emulators and testbeds for wireless sensor networks. In Proc. the 2010 International Symposium on Information Technology, June 2010, pp.897-902.

  16. Österlind F. A sensor network simulator for the Contiki OS. Technical Report, 2006. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1041560/FULLTEXT01.pdf, March 2020.

  17. Boano C A, Römer K, Österlind F, Voigt T. Demo abstract: Realistic simulation of radio interference in COOJA. In Proc. the European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks, February 2011.

  18. Österlind F, Dunkels A, Eriksson J, Finne N, Voigt T. Cross-level sensor network simulation with COOJA. In Proc. the 31st IEEE Conference on the Local Computer Networks, November 2006, pp.641-648.

  19. Tall H, Chalhoub G, Misson M. Implementation and performance evaluation of IEEE 802.15.4 unslotted CSMA/CA protocol on Contiki OS. Annals of Telecommunications, 2016, 71(9): 517-526.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Boano C A, Brown J, He Z T, Roedig U, Voigt T. Low-power radio communication in industrial outdoor deployments: The impact of weather conditions and ATEX-compliance. In Proc. the 1st International Conference on Sensor Applications, Experimentation and Logistics, September 2009, pp.159-176.

  21. Pullwitt S, Hartung R, Kulau U, Wolf L. Towards accurate bit error simulation in wireless sensor networks including environmental influences. In Proc. the 16th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Systems, November 2019, pp.82-90.

  22. Österlind F, Eriksson J, Dunkels A. Cooja timeline: A power visualizer for sensor network simulation. In Proc. the 8th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, November 2010, pp.385-386.

  23. Eriksson J, Österlind F, Finne N, Tsiftes N, Dunkels A, Voigt T, Sauter R, Marrón P J. COOJA/MSPSim: Interoperability testing for wireless sensor networks. In Proc. the 2nd International Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques, March 2009, Article No. 27.

  24. Nagaraju S, Rege V, Gudino L J, Ramesha C K. Realistic directional antenna suite for Cooja simulator. In Proc. the 23rd National Conference on Communications, March 2017.

  25. Mansfield S, Veenstra K, Obraczka K. TerrainLOS: An outdoor propagation model for realistic sensor network simulation. In Proc. the 24th IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, September 2016, pp.463-468.

  26. Shafik R A, Rahman M S, Islam A R. On the extended relationships among EVM, BER and SNR as performance metrics. In Proc. the 2006 International Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering, December 2006, pp.408-411.

  27. Erdöl H, Özderya H Y, Şişman C, Kayikcioglu T, Kaya İ. BER performance comparison of IEEE 802.15.6 and IEEE 802.15.4 on PHY layer. In Proc. the 39th International Conference on Telecommunications and Signal Processing, June 2016, pp.108-111.

  28. Elsts A, Wennerström H, Rohner C. IEEE 802.15. 4 channel diversity in an outdoor environment. In Proc. the 6th ACM Workshop on Real World Wireless Sensor Networks, November 2015, pp.11-14.

  29. Boano C A, Zúñiga M, Brown J, Roedig U, Keppitiyagama C, Römer Kay. TempLab: A testbed infrastructure to study the impact of temperature on wireless sensor networks. In Proc. the 13th International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks, April 2014, pp.95-106.

  30. Luomala J, Hakala I. Effects of temperature and humidity on radio signal strength in outdoor wireless sensor networks. In Proc. the 2015 Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, September 2015, pp.1247-1255.

  31. IEEE Computer Society. IEEE Standard for Low-Rate Wireless Networks. IEEE Std 802.15.4-2015 (Revision of IEEE Std 802.15.4-2011), April 2016.

  32. Kulau U, Rottmann S, Schildt S et al. Undervolting in real world WSN applications: A long-term study. In Proc. the 12th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems, May 2016, pp.9-16.

  33. Hermans F, Wennerström H, McNamara L, Rohner C, Gunningberg P. All is not lost: Understanding and exploiting packet corruption in outdoor sensor networks. In Proc. the 11th European Conference on Wireless Sensor Networks, February 2014, pp.116-132.

  34. Lacan J, Roca V, Peltotalo J, Peltotalo S. Reed-solomon forward error correction (FEC) schemes. https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5510, March 2020.

  35. Islam M R. Error correction codes in wireless sensor network: An energy aware approach. International Journal of Computer and Information Engineering, 2010, 4(1): 59-64.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Operating Systems and Computer Networks, Technische Universität Braunschweig, 38106, Braunschweig, Germany

    Sven Pullwitt, Robert Hartung, Ulf Kulau & Lars Wolf

Authors
  1. Sven Pullwitt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Robert Hartung
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ulf Kulau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Lars Wolf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sven Pullwitt.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(PDF 295 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Pullwitt, S., Hartung, R., Kulau, U. et al. Towards Accurate Bit Error Simulation in Wireless Sensor Networks Including Environmental Influences. J. Comput. Sci. Technol. 35, 809–824 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-020-0241-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-020-0241-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation