Realistic directional antenna suite for cooja simulator

Abstract

The use of directional antennas in wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks is gaining immense popularity due to its features such as increased coverage range, security, enhanced throughput and energy efficiency. Only a few simulators such as Network Simulator 2 (NS2), NS3 and Qualnet are currently providing directional antenna support. Recently, a directional antenna model has been implemented in Cooja simulator, which we have enhanced further to provide a realistic approach for simulations relying on directional communications. In this paper, we propose a directional antenna suite which also has the features to support smart antennas. The proposed suite allows to load simulation results of desired antenna radiation pattern, simulated using High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) or any other antenna design simulators. The simulations carried out in the proposed suite, to analyze the performance of directional antennas in terms of coverage range, packet delivery ratio and Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) is in utmost accuracy with the real-time measurements. Using this newly designed suite eases the code portability from simulation to real-time deployment.