Discrete-time simulation of smart antenna systems in Network Simulator-2 Using MATLAB and Octave

This paper presents two platforms that exploit the scalability properties of network simulator-2 (ns-2) for the discrete-event simulation of a telecommunication network, and the modeling capabilities of two development tools for the discrete-time implementation of adaptive antenna arrays at PHYsical (PHY) layer. The two tools are the proprietary software MATLAB and the open source one Octave, which are both used to implement the physical antenna system, the beamforming algorithm, the channel coding scheme, and the multipath and fading statistics. The adopted approach enables to model in detail the antenna radiation pattern generated by each network node, thus improving the accuracy of the Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR) estimated at the receiver. This study describes the methods that can be adopted to interface MATLAB and Octave with ns-2, discussing the advantages and disadvantages that characterize the integration of the two tools with ns-2. The proposed numerical platforms, which can be interfaced with any wireless network supported by ns-2, are used to investigate the possibility to exploit smart antenna systems in a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) for enabling the coexistence of multiple simultaneous communications