A hierarchical simulation environment for mobile wireless networks

A hierarchical simulator has been designed for multimedia communication protocols in a wireless mobile environment. The hierarchical approach integrates performance evaluation of protocols with their implementation. The approach supports scalability studies of the protocols in an efficient manner using coarse grain models that abstract implementation details of the protocol and its execution environment by a few key parameters. Fine grain, low level models that capture implementation details are used for detailed evaluation of small networks and for automatic implementation on radio platforms. The design, evaluation, and implementation cycle is closed by feeding the measurements from the implementation back into the model to improve its accuracy. The paper describes the use of the environment in the evaluation and implementation of a cluster based multihop protocol for multimedia traffic.