LL SimpleWireless: A Controlled MAC/PHY Wireless Model to Enable Network Protocol Research

Wireless network protocol research typically requires evaluating performance over a set of controlled wireless link conditions. Although ns-3 provides wireless models like WiFi and WiMax, they have dozens of parameters that affect performance and it is difficult to control link rate, latency, error, and other attributes. To mitigate this issue, we extended a basic, range-based ns-3 model called SimpleWireless. Features that were added to this model include transmission delay, configurable queues that enforce a data rate, support for differentiation of control and data traffic, support for several configurable error models, support for directional networking, support for fixed contention and finally, support for PCAP packet capture. The goal of these additional features is to provide network protocol researchers with a basic yet feature rich wireless model that enables evaluating their protocol in a controlled wireless environment. In this paper, we describe the base SimpleWireless model and each feature that has been developed to enhance that model and create the so called "LL SimpleWireless" model. Additionally, we provide information on performance evaluation of the LL SimpleWireless model to verify functionality of the added features.