The simulation and emulation platforms of underwater acoustic sensor networks

Abstract

Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASN) are a promising research area, due to the wide range of aquatic applications, such as pollution monitoring and submarine detection. The realistic evaluation of the novel UASN protocols and algorithms in the field trials is too expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, standard simulation and emulation platforms of UASN are quite required, and can efficiently reduce the development cycle of novel methods. In this paper, we introduce the platforms developed by our laboratory, which are based on the well-known ns2 and ns-miracle simulators, with the layered structure supporting the cross-layer signaling. The simulation platform works on the personal computer equipped with linux operating system. The architecture of the platform is divided into four layers: application layer, routing layer, medium access layer, and physical layer. The emulation platform works on the embedded devices in the sea trial, such as the OMAPL138 DSP+ARM dual-processor of Texas Instrument company. To guarantee the consistency, the programming codes of networking protocols in the emulation platform can be adopted directly from those in the simulation platform. Finally, in this paper, we present the simulation and emulation results to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the platforms.