Simulation of 3D signal propagation based on real world terrains for Ad-Hoc Network evaluation

Measurements show that features of real-world terrains have a significant impact on the propagation characteristics of any signal. For example, hills or other features might act as obstacles limiting the communication range irregularly. This is crucial for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks with mobile nodes and intermittent connectivity as major challenge. However, 3D real-world terrain features are usually not considered during protocol evaluation simulations. In this paper, we present our approach to integrate such features into OMNeT++/MiXiM based on publicly available Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data. We use the Durkin's propagation model to estimate the connectivity between sender and receiver in 3D-space. First simulation results clearly show the different behavior of the nodes connectivity between 2D and 3D scenarios, suggesting that this should be considered during protocol evaluations.