Impact of Channel Models on Simulation of Large Scale Wireless Networks

Accurate simulation of wireless networks requires realistic models of the channel propagation medium. The commonly used free space model is computationally efficient but ignores many losses that are common in wireless signal propagation. This paper describes the impact of the wireless channel models on the accuracy and execution time of large-scale simulation models. The paper also demonstrates the impact of using parallel execution in reducing the execution time of the model sufficiently such that a model with 10,000 wireless nodes can be simulated with 6 processors in less time than a network with half as many nodes using sequential execution. 1. Introduction Wireless communication systems for military and commercial infrastructures have been significantly scaled up in their sizes as well as complexities. Such systems are analytically intractable and simulation is a common alternative to explore the behavior of largescale, complex wireless network systems. However, existing popular..