A Fast and Accurate Approximation of IEEE 802.11 Physical Layer Models for Network Simulators

Network simulators are used for the research and development of several types of networks. However, one of the limitations of these simulators is the usage of simplified theoretical models of the Packet Error Rate (PER) at the Physical Layer (PHY) of the IEEE 802.11 family of wireless standards. Although the simplified PHY model can significantly reduce the simulation time, the resulting PER can differ considerably from other more realistic results. In this work, we first study several PER theoretical models. Then, we propose a curve fitting algorithm, which is able to obtain a fast and accurate approximation of other PER models. The curve fitting algorithm uses simulated data as input and outputs the coefficients of a simple model that offers a very accurate approximation of the original PER. Finally, we implemented this approximation in the ns-3 network simulator, thus obtaining high realism since now we can select several theoretical PER models or even a more realistic scenario with the effect of the high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) in the signal. The ns-3 results show how the selection of the PER model at the PHY can significantly impact the Packet Loss Rate (PLR) of a scenario composed of a linear chain of several nodes, one of the simplest multi-hop scenarios