Integration of event-driven embedded operating systems into OMNet++: a case study with reflex

Developing wireless sensor network (WSN) applications is a challenging task. Simulations are a key component in the development process, since they offer simple means of testing and evaluating the applications without the need of time consuming and tedious deployment. But simulations alone are not sufficient to evaluate such applications. Only experiments on real hardware can ultimately verify the correctness of a given algorithm and its implementation. To take the most benefit from a WSN simulator it must be able to simulate a sensor network, where all nodes run the same implementation of the algorithm that will later be deployed. We show how to integrate event-driven operating systems into the OMNeT++ discrete event simulator. At the example of Reflex we show how an integration can be easily achieved with minor effort. Additionally we discuss an alternative approach which promises better scalability but comes at the cost of less flexibility at the application layer and requires more deeply intrusions into the operating system. We argue that the integration is feasible and that it yields a simulation tool, which can perform similar to other tools like TOSSIM or COOJA but benefits notably from the flexibility of OMNeT++ and its cornucopia of readily available models provided by the community.