A novel network simulator based on stochastic spatial models

Abstract

Wireless ad hoc networks have been of significant interest in the communications engineering field within the last decades. Due to their flexibility and relatively low infrastructure and front end expenses, wireless ad hoc networks promise a wide application spectrum. To understand their expected performance, interference limited scenarios must be considered and an interference analysis based on the spatial distribution of the network nodes is necessary. This analysis must cover the randomness of this spatial distribution. The authors have considered the stochastic geometry tools as basic means for this analysis. The randomness of the individual spatial distribution realizations can thus be decoupled from the interference analysis by collecting the statistics over multiple particular spatial network distributions, which eases the analysis. In this manuscript the authors illustrate a simulation framework for the investigation of the performance of wireless ad hoc networks. The simulation results for the various spatial node densities are discussed for both distribution types by taking the interference limited scenarios into account. Also, theoretical performance bounds are shown which allow the verification of the stochastic simulation.