Comparison of Wireless Network Simulators with Multihop Wireless Network Testbed in Corridor Environment

This paper presents a comparative study between results of a single channel multihop wireless network testbed and the network simulators ns-2 and ns-3. We explore how well these simulators reflect reality with their standard empirical radio modeling capabilities. The environment studied is a corridor causing wave-guiding propagation phenomena of radio waves, which challenges the radio models used in the simulators. We find that simulations are roughly matching with testbed results for single flows, but clearly deviate from testbed results for concurrent flows. The mismatch between simulations and testbed results is due to imperfect wireless propagation channel modeling. This paper reveals the importance of validating simulation results when studying single channel multihop wireless network performance. It further emphasizes the need for validation when using empirical radio modeling for more complex environments such as corridors.