Simulation of Underwater RF Wireless Sensor Networks using Castalia

TL;DR

This paper presents a simulation framework for underwater RF wireless sensor networks using real channel measurements, incorporating hardware and protocol details to aid in designing network algorithms.

Contribution

It introduces modifications to Castalia for realistic underwater RF network simulation based on real measurements, covering hardware, channel impairments, and protocols.

Findings

Simulated underwater RF networks with realistic impairments

Provided guidelines for adapting Castalia for underwater scenarios

Facilitated development of algorithms for monitoring and navigation

Abstract

We use real measurements of the underwater channel to simulate a whole underwater RF wireless sensor networks, including propagation impairments (e.g., noise, interference), radio hardware (e.g., modulation scheme, bandwidth, transmit power), hardware limitations (e.g., clock drift, transmission buffer) and complete MAC and routing protocols. The results should be useful for designing centralized and distributed algorithms for applications like monitoring, event detection, localization and aid to navigation. We also explain the changes that have to be done to Castalia in order to perform the simulations.