Michel Bakni¹, Luis Manuel Moreno Chac´on², Yudith Cardinale², Guillaume Terrasson¹ and Octavian Curea¹, ¹Univ. Bordeaux, France and ²Universidad Sim´on Bol´ıvar, Venezuela

Nowadays, there exists a large number of available network simulators, that differ in their design, goals, and characteristics. Users who have to decide which simulator is the most appropriate for their particular requirements, are today lost, faced with a panoply of disparate and diverse simulators. Hence, it is obvious the need for establishing guidelines that support users in the tasks of selecting and customizing a simulator to suit their preferences and needs. In previous works, we proposed a generic and novel methodological approach to evaluate network simulators, considering a set of qualitative and quantitative criteria. However, it lacks criteria related to Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). Thus, the aim of this work is three fold: (i) extend the previous proposed methodology to include the evaluation of WSN simulators, such as energy consumption modelling and scalability; (ii) elaborate a study of the state of the art of WSN simulators, with the intention of identifying the most used and cited in scientific articles; and (iii) demonstrate the suitability of our novel methodology by evaluating and comparing three of the most cited simulators. Our novel methodology provides researchers with an evaluation tool that can be used to describe and compare WSN simulators in order to select the most appropriate one for a given scenario

Methodology, Simulators, Wireless Sensors Networks, Energy Consumption