A new approach to simulating PHY, MAC and routing

In recent years, network simulation has become a very difficult task due to the proliferation and integration of wireless technologies. In this paper, we discuss the new challenges that have arisen regarding the simulation of the wireless channel and the PHY, MAC and Routing layers, argumenting why currently available network simulation tools such as ns2 and many of its recently proposed extensions do not address all these issues in a comprehensive and systematic fashion. We then present a novel framework designed to address these challenges. This framework has been developed as an extension of NS-Miracle, in order to have support in the definition and management of scenarios involving the use of multiple interfaces and radio technologies, and is made up of two components. The first component is the Miracle PHY and MAC framework, which provides support for the development of Channel, PHY and MAC modules, providing support for features currently lacking in most state-of-the-art simulators, while at the same time giving a strong emphasis on code modularity, interoperability and reusability. The second component is the Miracle Routing framework, which enables the integration of different routing schemes in a multi-tier architecture to provide support for the simulation of multi-technology and heterogeneous networks. We want to observe that, thanks to this framework, it is now possible to carefully simulate complex network architectures potentially at all the OSI layers, from the physical reception model to standard applications and system management schemes. This allows to have both a comprehensive view of all the networks interactions and its high level view, which plays an important role in many research investigation area, such as cognitive networking and cross-layer design.