A system design framework for scalability analysis of geographic routing algorithms in large-scale mesh networks

It is important to evaluate the performance of large communication networks prior to their deployment, in particular if economic interests are involved. In wireless multi-hop mesh networks, a communication message is transferred from a source to a destination via multiple nodes. Typically the message can be transferred via multiple routes in a mesh network, because several nodes are in communication range. During the design phase of such a communication network, specific characteristics need to be considered in order to avoid boundaries like bottlenecks and dead-end problems of the deployed system. Hence these kinds of problems must be avoided prior to the network deployment. In this paper, we present a system design framework for the OMNeT++ simulation environment, which is able to identify potential bottlenecks and maximum loads of multi-hop networks. The process is presented via a realistic use case scenario for an Energy Management Application, in which geographic routing algorithms are used to identify the shortest route to a destination. The results of the performance evaluation enabled us to support the communication design process with information about reliability, data rate and routing schemes.