Evaluation of CupCarbon Network Simulator for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are a technology in full evolution with great future and a huge quantity of applications. This document lists some of the limitations existing in WSN networks. In addition, several existing techniques are collected to maximize the network's lifetime, demonstrating that efficient use of energy is very important to achieve this goal. Due to the importance of knowing the behaviour of this type of network before its launch, a comparative is established for the options offered by the WSN network simulators available in the market, compared to those offered by CupCarbon. The objective of this project is the evaluation of the CupCarbon simulator through the implementation of an algorithm that aims to maximize the life time of the network, as well as collecting the results offered by this algorithm. In this way, a Dijkstra routing algorithm is developed whose selection of routes depends on the battery level contained in the nodes that constitute the network. This algorithm is referred as dynamic Dijkstra in the present document. To achieve the objectives described, we pretend to simulate the dynamic Dijkstra in CupCarbon, for this aim, the source code is modified, since it is a free code tool. As a result, it is possible to create the original Dijkstra, but certain problems are presented, to develop the part that depends on the energy, related to the functionalities offered by CupCarbon. As an alternative to determine the results associated to the created algorithm, theoretical analyses are accomplished. Consequently, it is concluded that the evaluation of CupCarbon is not satisfactory enough, while the algorithm created maximizes the network's lifetime.