Visualization in Sensor Network Simulator, SENSE and Its Use in Protocol Verification Christopher Morrell Thomas Babbitt Boleslaw K. Szymanski network visualization wireless sensor networks network simulator People are always looking for a way to visualize a problem. Whether that be by creating a 3-dimensional model, build- ing a graph, or simply drawing on a board. The issue of visualizing a problem also finds its way into networking, and more specifically wireless sensor networking. Many network- ing simulation tools exist, and while some are very good at performing simulation, they may not be good at providing a visualization tool to examine simulation results. SENSE is an example of a simulation tool specifically design to eas- ily build a sensor network model and simulate it efficiently, yet, it lacks the ability to robustly display the results of the simulation in a visual manner. This paper addresses that problem, and presents a clean solution for connecting the SENSE wireless sensor network simulator with iNSpect, a visualization tool intended to work with ns2. This paper also presents two examples of the use of this tool combination to identify and solve issues that arose in the development of wireless sensor network routing protocols. Department of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY cs-08-13
Visualization in Sensor Network Simulator, SENSE and Its Use in Protocol Verification
Christopher Morrell
Thomas Babbitt
Boleslaw K. Szymanski
network visualization
wireless sensor networks
network simulator
People are always looking for a way to visualize a problem. Whether that be by creating a 3-dimensional model, build- ing a graph, or simply drawing on a board. The issue of visualizing a problem also finds its way into networking, and more specifically wireless sensor networking. Many network- ing simulation tools exist, and while some are very good at performing simulation, they may not be good at providing a visualization tool to examine simulation results. SENSE is an example of a simulation tool specifically design to eas- ily build a sensor network model and simulate it efficiently, yet, it lacks the ability to robustly display the results of the simulation in a visual manner. This paper addresses that problem, and presents a clean solution for connecting the SENSE wireless sensor network simulator with iNSpect, a visualization tool intended to work with ns2. This paper also presents two examples of the use of this tool combination to identify and solve issues that arose in the development of wireless sensor network routing protocols.
Department of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
cs-08-13