An Agent-Based Multi-Model Tool for Simulating Multiple Concurrent Applications in WSNs

Due to hardware resource constraints in WSN
nodes, and lack of support for high-level development
environments, application developers tend to avoid concurrent
object-oriented models in designing WSN applications. In
recent years due to new advances in microelectronics and
embedded system design, there have been a number of attempts
at manufacturing WSN node prototypes with resource-rich
capabilities that enable running multiple applications on
individual nodes or on groups of them collectively. However,
generating realistic results for large-scale concurrent
applications requires sophisticated simulation and debugging
tools. In this paper we describe a novel simulation tool with
multi-model execution environments that overcomes many
complexities involved in simulating large-scale WSNs. SXCS,
SensomaX Companion Simulator, is a standalone generic
simulator particularly targeting agent-based architectures for
densely distributed embedded systems. The proposed
architecture, unlike many existing models, is not tied to any
particular platform and can be fine-tuned through a set of
powerful network APIs as well as being capable of hosting
multiple highly dynamic virtual environments. It can also act as
an emulator taking the entire middleware source code to
replicate its core functionalities over a network of up to 2500
virtual nodes. An open-source release of SXCS is planned for
later in 2013.