Advanced Seminar Embedded Systems 2008/2009

Simulation of wireless ad-hoc sensor

networks with QualNet

Documentation

by Tobias Doerffel

Chemnitz, April 9, 2009

Contents

Contents

1 Introduction 3
1.1 The scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 QualNet overview 4
2.1 Components of QualNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Installing QualNet on a recent Linux system . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3 Installing QualNet on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3 Designing the scenario 6

3.1 Data sink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2 Mobile sensor nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3 Wireless subnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4 Traffic generators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

4 Running the scenario 11

4.1 Graphical animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2 QualNet 3D Visualizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.3 Command line interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

5 Analyzing the results 14

6 Conclusion 16

2
 1. Introduction

1 Introduction
Nowadays network applications – especially in the area of wireless networks – are
becoming more and more complex which makes the design and the testing almost
impossible without appropriate software. There’re a lot of different programs avail-
able to aid the user in simulating previously designed scenarios. This work covers
the implementation of a given scenario using the software QualNet by Scalable Net-
works in version 4.5.1.
QualNet is a commercial software that runs on all common platforms (Linux, Win-
dows, Solaris, OS X) and is specialized in simulating all kind of wireless applications.
It has a quite clear user interface compared to other solutions while also offering an
easy to use command line interface.

1.1 The scenario

We had been given the following wireless scenario to be implemented:
• sensor network with 10 mobile nodes and a statically placed data sink
(root node)
• IEEE 802.15.4 wireless standard for PHY and MAC layer
1
• AODV (Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector) routing
2
• Random Waypoint Mobility Model for the mobile nodes
• 2 KB/s unidirectional continuous network load from each sensor node to
data sink
• time synchronization with the root node every 10 seconds using the FTSP
(Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol) 3
• optional:
– TCP/IP stack integration with UDP load (e.g. videostream) from root
node to all nodes (10 KB/s)
– acknowledged sensor data
It however was not possible to meet all these requirements due to missing features
in the program. Details will follow.

1
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3561
2
http://mathstat.helsinki.fi/mathphys/EVERGROW/virtamo.pdf
3
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/ mdw/course/cs263/papers/ftsp-sensys04.pdf

3
2. QualNet overview

2 QualNet overview

2.1 Components of QualNet

QualNet consists of various components:
• QualNet Scenario Designer
• QualNet Animator
• QualNet 3D Visualizer
• QualNet Analyzer
• QualNet Packet Tracer
All components but the last will be described in detail in the according chapter.

2.2 Installing QualNet on a recent Linux system

Getting to run QualNet on recent Linux systems is a bit tricky as it has been built
for rather outdated Linux distributions (Fedora Core 4 which has been released
in June 2005). All steps described in the following refer to recent Debian based
distributions but probably are applicable for other distributions as well.
First of all you need to register an account in order to download the software archive
at 4 . Afterwards the archive can be extracted:

sudo su
cd / opt
tar xzf < download directory >/ qualnet -4.5.1 - evaluation . tar . gz

Next the QualNet core application has to be compiled. Since the provided source
code does not follow the official C++ standard (ISO/IEC 14882:1998) it can’t be
compiled without some small modifications. An according patch named fix-qualnet-
core-sources.diff can be found in the archive containing all files related to this work.
To apply it and compile everything run the following commands:

sudo su
cd / opt / qualnet /4.5/
patch - p2 < ...../ fix - qualnet - core - sources . diff
cd main
cp Makefile - linux - glibc -2.3 - gcc -4.0 Makefile
make

4
http://www.scalable-networks.com/products/qualnet/download.php

4
 2.3 Installing QualNet on Windows

In case you system is 64 bit you need to replace ”Makefile-linux-glibc-2.3-gcc-4.0”

with ”Makefile-linux-x86 64-glibc-2.3-gcc-4.0” in the above commands. Now some
symlinks need to be created due to the already mentioned linking against old li-
braries.
sudo su
cd / usr / lib
ln -s libexpat . so libexpat . so .0
ln -s libssl . so libssl . so .5
ln -s libcrypto . so libcrypto . so .5

The last thing to do at this stage is to download the license file

(qualnet-4.5.1-eval-YYYY.MM.DD.lic) from the same URL as the software and
place it in /opt/qualnet/4.5/license dir.
If everything finished without errors, QualNet is ready to run.

2.3 Installing QualNet on Windows

The installation of QualNet on Windows should be quite straight-forward via the
installer and thus is not described in detail here. The installation brings a pre-
compiled qualnet.exe so there’s no need to compile components of QualNet on your
own.

5
3. Designing the scenario

3 Designing the scenario

Given QualNet has been started successfully, a new empty scenario has to be created
using a wizard which can be started via File→New. After it has finished a workspace
with an empty scenario can be seen as as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: QualNet Designer: an empty scenario to start with

All properties of the scenario can be viewed and changed using the Inspector on the
left side. There’s an amazing amount of properties, subproperties and parameters
that can be altered although we only need to touch a very few of them.
For not having to change common properties for each node there’s a possibility to
set global properties below ConfigSettings. In particular only some of the items are
of interest in the following. The changes as listed below were made to configure the
nodes according to the requirements:
• Wireless Settings→Radio/Physical Layer →Radio Type: 802.15.4 Radio
• Wireless Settings→MAC Protocol →MAC Protocol : 802.15.4
• Network Protocols→Routing Protocol →Routing Policy→Routing Protocol for
IPv4 : AODV

6
 3. Designing the scenario

• Network Protocols→Network Protocol →IP Fragmentation Unit: 70

• Node Positioning→Mobility→Mobility Model : Random Waypoint
• General →Terrain→Coordinate-System→Dimensions: 100 100
Now we can start adding nodes by selecting Devices→DEFAULT in the toolbar
and clicking in the workspace. This is merely useful in scenarios with only a few
nodes.
A vast number of nodes can be created easily utilizing Experiment→Place Nodes.
In the dialog the numer of nodes to be created can be set - in our case 11 nodes.
Keeping the placement strategy Uniform works quite well. After clicking Finish,
11 new nodes should appear on the workspace. The first node (which will be our
data sink) should be dragged to the center of the workspace (make sure to select
the move-tool before) so the average distance to all the other mobile nodes will be
minimal.

Figure 2: Inspector with all modified global properties

7
3.1 Data sink

3.1 Data sink

The data sink differs from the other (sensor) nodes only regarding mobility and its
role in the 802.15.4 network. Therefore the following properties below Hierarchy(0)
→ Nodes → host1 → Node Configuration explicitely have to be overridden:
• Mobility → Mobility Model : None
• MAC Protocol → MAC Protocol : 802.15.4
• MAC Protocol → MAC Protocol → Device Type: Full Function Device
The latter two settings are required to make the root node act as PAN Coordinator
which is required in every 802.15.4 wireless network. The other nodes act as so
called Reduced Function Devices (RFD).

3.2 Mobile sensor nodes

No further changes have to be made for mobile sensor nodes although it’s possible to
tune various interesting parameters in later experiments, for example transmission
power or energy model specifications.

3.3 Wireless subnet

Until now all the nodes will only communicate on PHY and MAC layer. Therefore
a wireless subnet has to be added to the scenario. The most convenient way to
achieve this is selecting all hosts either using the rectangular- or the lasso selection
tool. Then enable Network Components→Wireless Network in the toolbar and
click somewhere into the selected region. This will add a new wireless subnet and
automatically attach all hosts to it.
Now the PHY and MAC layer need to be configured by modifying some items below
Hierarchy(0) → Nodes → Wireless Subnet N8-192.0.0.0 :
• Wireless Subnet Properties→Radio Type→Radio Type: 802.15.4 Radio
• Wireless Subnet Properties→MAC Protocol →MAC Protocol : 802.15.4

8
 3.4 Traffic generators

3.4 Traffic generators

The last important thing that is still missing in our scenario are traffic genera-
tors so that we can actually do some sensible simulations. For this select Applica-
tions→CBR from the toolbar in the designer view. Via drag’n’drop it’s possible to
link all sensor nodes with the root node. Make sure to drag from sensor node to
root node so that there’s an unidirectional traffic to root node. After finishing the
scenario looks like in figure 3.

Figure 3: Final scenario with traffic generators

9
3.4 Traffic generators

Finally the traffic generators have to be configured according to the scenario speci-
fications. For each traffic generator in the inspector change the following properties
below Connections→CBR XX-1 :
• Items to Send : 30
• Item Size (bytes): 2048
• End Time: 0
• Traffic type→Data Size→Fixed Size: 2048
As a last tweak the simulation time (ConfigSettings→General →Simulation Time)
should be altered to 300 seconds as per default the simulation runs faster than
realtime and thus would be finished just after a few seconds.
Now the scenario should be ready to run.

Figure 4: Inspector with properties of traffic generators

10
 4. Running the scenario

4 Running the scenario

There are various ways of running the scenario – depending on the results you want
to have. Every procedure has its own advantages and disadvantages.

4.1 Graphical animation

To give an idea of how (in terms of quantitative) the scenario performs it can be
run using the QualNet Animator. Figure 5 shows the Animator with the previously
designed scenario in action. On the right side you can enable or disable various
types of animations. In the Layers tab animations for each of the 7 OSI layers can
be enabled or disabled individually.

Figure 5: QualNet Animator in action

The worst drawback of the QualNet animator is its extrem high CPU utilization
and its implementation in Java which makes it run very slowly on most machines.

4.2 QualNet 3D Visualizer

To bypass the performance limitations of the Animator you can use the QualNet 3D
Visualizer which makes use of OpenGL accellerated graphic cards. It also allows
various threedimensional views at the running scenario. In figure 6 and figure 7
typical 3D Visualizer sessions are shown.

11
4.2 QualNet 3D Visualizer

Figure 6: 3D Visualizer

Figure 7: 3D Visualizer with broadcasts enabled

12
 4.3 Command line interface

4.3 Command line interface

While offering a lot of easy-to-use graphical frontends, QualNet also brings a com-
mand line interface which is mainly useful if you’re only interested in the actual
statistical data of a simulation.
When creating a scenario using the Designer, besides the project file a subdirectory
with the same name is being created and contains various other files related to
simulation. For using the command line interface the file <project name>.config is
of importance. This config file is a standard text file and settings can be changed
easily by just editing this file. To run the scenario described in a config file, the
QualNet CLI can be run as follows:
cd < path to scenario folder >/ < project name >
< path to qualnet >/ bin / qualnet < project name >. config

If not specified differently, this will generate a file called Qualnet.stat which contains
all statistical data related to the simulation. It can be viewed using the QualNet
Analyzer as described in the next chapter.

13
5. Analyzing the results

5 Analyzing the results

The most interesting part probably is analyzing the statistical data generated during
simulation. Depending on the configuration scenario statistics for all OSI layers can
be viewed separately. Clicking the Analyzer tab at the top will bring up the QualNet
Analyzer. Inside the subdirectory belonging to the current scenario there should
be some files called ”Qualnet....stat” - if not, the scenario hasn’t been run before.
Double clicking the according statistic file will open the Analyzer which allows you
to browse through the statistics of the different OSI layers. Selecting items will
show informative graphs such as shown in figure 8 and figure 9.

Figure 8: Analyzer with chart of signals received and forwarded to MAC

14
 5. Analyzing the results

Figure 9: Analyzer with chart on AODV routing statistics

15
6. Conclusion

6 Conclusion
Without having compared QualNet to other similiar solutions various advantages
became apparent while using it. The most important ones are:
• easy-to-use and clear UI
• wide range of possible applications (even WiMAX MAC layer is supported)
• support for multiprocessor systems and distributed computing
• sophisticated animation capabilities
• extensive possibilities for analyzing scenario
• shipped with a lot helpful documentation and tons of example scenarios

There’re some disadvantages as well:

• difficult installation on Linux
• slow Java-based UI
• very expensive (couldn’t find any specific figure) – however there’s a special
QualNet University Program which - according to 5 - allows to get a license
for about 3000 Euro per year.

5
ftp://ftp.tik.ee.ethz.ch/pub/publications/TIK-Report-255.pdf, page 11

16