Wireless sensor network modular node modeling and simulation with VisualSense

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been studied deeply during the last years, but real deployments with thousands of motes are really critical in cost, time and reliability due to several problems: commissioning, debugging, etc. In this context, simulation is becoming mandatory to reduce the potential failures of the WSN before deployment, which is very costly. In this paper, a simulation approach for WSNs nodes is presented, based in the Ptolemy simulation environment, specifically in VisualSense. The simulation is carried out over specific hardware, a modular platform for WSNs, whose main feature is the modularity. Therefore, the simulation is also modular, making the process very flexible to modifications of the HW to be simulated and to the operation conditions.