Simulation framework for modelling energy consumption in ultra-low duty cycle mobile ad-hoc networks

The article presents a simulation framework designed to support development of ultra-low duty cycle mobile ad-hoc network applications. In particular a railway vehicle monitoring system is considered, that is equipped with devices allowing cargo localization. In addition to GPS and GSM connectivity, a local radio network connection is added allowing aggregation of localization data from multiple nodes into a single node's GSM transmission in order to minimize energy consumption. A simulation model developed for studying network behavior and performance is presented, that allows to directly run the target code inside the simulator, features a sufficient clock drift model as well as detailed energy consumption profiling. The article provides model verification results and discusses it's future application.