Design support for wireless sensor networks based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard

Within this paper a modeling environment for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) is proposed. This environment consists of a framework, which represents the behavior of wireless sensor networks (WSN) in general and a library containing simulation models for the used hardware components (e.g. CPU and Transceiver) and software stacks. This library can be easily extended by new component models, node hardware configurations or embedded software. The developed environment allows the simulation of WSNs on a detailed level including all important parameters like RAM usage, power consumption and processor utilization. Therefore, the outcome of the simulation results can, among others, be used for software optimizations and for design of a suitable power supply. Even though the simulation environment allows this level of detail, it is not limited to this. E.g. at the starting point of the development, the user can implement more abstract models, which do not use all the features offered by the framework. Instead, during this phase of the development one could focus on the functional behavior of the implemented algorithms (e.g. routing) or the application itself. These models created in this early phase of the development can be refined throughout the development process. At this more detailed level of abstraction the software design can be verified very efficiently. Finally, this software can be transferred to an embedded target.