Simulating large wireless sensor networks using cellular automata

A wireless sensor network is a special kind of ad hoc network where the nodes can sense, actuate, compute and communicate with each other using point-to-point multi-hop communication. Sensor networks can be used in a wide range of applications, such as environmental monitoring and industrial applications. Despite their potential applications, such networks have particular features imposed by resource restrictions, such as low computational power, reduced bandwidth and specially limited power source. Nowadays, real wireless sensor networks infrastructures are still very expensive. Therefore, most of the evaluations of new protocols are being made through simulation tools. The objective of this work is to verify the applicability of using cellular automata to simulate some aspects of sensor networks. A simulator has been developed to evaluate an algorithm for a very common problem in sensor networks: the topology control. The solution presented is based on the geographical position and the operational states of the sensor nodes. The obtained results indicate that cellular automata can be used with success to simulate large wireless sensor networks.