Instrumenting network simulators for evaluating energy consumption in power-aware ad-hoc network protocols

In this paper, we describe our work on instrumenting network simulators to enable them to adequately and accurately account for the energy consumed by ad hoc network protocols' communication-related tasks. This is accomplished by explicitly accounting for low-power radio modes and considering the different energy costs associated with each possible radio state, i.e, transmitting, receiving, overhearing, idle, sensing, and sleeping. Our energy consumption instrumentation also allows the energy accounting to be done automatically by the simulator irrespective of what layer of the stack the protocol designer is working. To validate our model, we compare: (1) simulation results using the GloMoSim/QualNet simulation platform with and without our instrumentation for the IEEE 802.11 DCF; (2) analytical results for both 802.11 and S-MAC (a power-aware MAC designed for sensor networks); and (3) simulation results reproducing testbed experiments obtained for the S-MAC protocol. Finally, by comparing S-MAC against 802.11 and AODV against DSR, we showcase the ability of a network simulation platform instrumented with our energy consumption model to evaluate energy consumption in ad-hoc network protocols.