Wireless network modeling and simulation tools for designers and developers

Modeling and simulation methods are employed by scientists and engineers to gain insight into system behavior that can lead to faster product time-to-market and more robust designs. These advantages come at the cost of model development time and the potential for questionable results because the model represents limited attributes of the actual system. M&S techniques are used to characterize complex interactions and performance at various layers of the protocol stack. This article provides a discussion of M&S for wireless network designers and developers, with particular attention paid to the architectural issues, as well as a discussion of the various communication M&S tools available today. The topics presented span the protocol stack, including radio-frequency-propagation M&S tools, physical-layer and waveform M&S, network-layer M&S, and distributed simulation, as well as waveform generation for test and evaluation.