A Middleware Services Simulation Platform forWireless Sensor Networks.pdf

A Middleware Services Simulation Platform for Wireless Sensor Networks Hock Beng Lim, Bang Wang, Cheng Fu, Arpan Phull, Di Ma Intelligent Systems Centre Nanyang Technological University limhb@.sg Abstract In the recent years, wireless sensor networks have at- tracted a lot of attention due to their broad application ar- eas. In many application scenarios, hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes may be deployed in the physical environ- ment. To design, implement, manage and maintain such large-scale networks efficiently is a major challenge which requires an integrated middleware development approach. In this paper, we focus on the development of a simulation platform specifically designed to support the development of sensor network middleware services. This novel platform is designed in a modular manner to facilitate the rapid inte- gration and testing of different middleware algorithms and services. We present the simulator’s software architecture and its operation. A case study to illustrate the usage of our simulation platform is also presented. The simulation plat- form shows potentials to support the research and develop- ment of middleware services for wireless sensor networks. 1 Introduction With the rapid advances in wireless communication tech- nologies, embedded processors, and MEMS sensor devices, more and more powerful wireless sensor network platforms are now available in the market. Nowadays, it is possi- ble to build large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that consist of hundreds or thousands of tiny sensor nodes. There is a broad spectrum of important applications of WSNs such as surveillance, environmental monitoring, and healthcare monitoring [1]. The increased scaling of WSN applications bring chal- lenges to the design of network protocol and management. In many application scenarios, it is necessary to deploy and control hundreds of sensor nodes to collaboratively exe- cute scheduled tasks such as to sense the physical world, to process the