A Network and System Level Approach towards an Accurate Simulation of WSNs

Since wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are used increasingly in industrial applications, new tight constraints on the timing and power consumption behaviour arise. These constraints cannot be investigated properly by using state-of-the-art simulation tools. In our work we consider and model the WSN at different levels of abstraction in the domains hardware, software, and network. Additionally, the behaviour of the software component executed on a node, which has a major impact on its timing and power consumption, is included in the simulation while maintaining acceptable performance. We show the usefulness and accuracy of our developed methodology using a simple but expressive TDMA-based networking scenario.