NetTopo: A framework of simulation and visualization for wireless sensor networks

Network simulators are necessary for testing algorithms of large scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs), but lack the accuracy of real-world deployments. Deploying real WSN testbed provides a more realistic test environment, and allows users to get more accurate test results. However, deploying real testbed is highly constrained by the available budget when the test needs a large scale WSN environment. By leveraging the advantages of both network simulator and real testbed, an approach that integrates simulation environment and testbed can effectively solve both scalability and accuracy issues. Hence, the simulation of virtual WSN, the visualization of real testbed, and the interaction between simulated WSN and testbed emerge as three key challenges. In this paper, we present an integrated framework called NetTopo for providing both simulation and visualization functions to assist the investigation of algorithms in WSNs. NetTopo provides a common virtual WSN for the purpose of interaction between sensor devices and simulated virtual nodes. Two case studies are described to prove the effectiveness of NetTopo.