Cross-platform protocol development based on OMNeT++

Software development for wireless sensor networks can be accomplished with dedicated operating systems such as Contiki or TinyOS. However, protocol design and verification as well as debugging is still challenging. On the other hand, high-level simulation environments, e.g., OMNeT++, allow convenient and rapid development, but the resulting code has to be re-implemented for a particular hardware platform. This paper introduces CometOS, a component-based, extensible, tiny operating system for wireless networks. CometOS is written in C++ and highly inspired by OMNeT++’s communication paradigm. It allows a cross-platform execution of protocols on OMNeT++ as well as on resource-restricted platforms such as wireless sensor nodes. A feasibility study is carried out on 93 nodes in the solar tower plant Jülich, Germany.