Routing in a Custom-Made IEEE 802.11E Simulator

The custom-made IEEE 802.11E simulator in this chapter is an evolution of the previous one. To provide support for multi-hop environment it was necessary to implement the routing algorithm above the already existing Medium Access Control (MAC) plus Physical (PHY) layers. After the random placement of all the stations in the field, the simulator determines which can communicate directly. With this data, the selected routing algorithm determines the shortest path from a station to all the others. For these initial tests we chose the well-known Dijkstra's algorithm. In this work, however, we present no cross-layer at all, and the routing table is not modified during the simulations. The engine starts collecting events at the beginning of the simulation. For the end user, this simulator allows for simulating a network with an unrestricted number of nodes, in any configuration type. By using the chosen routing protocol, it supports connections to every reachable station from its neighbours, allowing for a message to reach any destination.