Nanons: a nanoscale network simulator framework for molecular communications

Abstract

A number of nanomachines that cooperatively communicate and share molecular information in order to achieve specific tasks is envisioned as a nanonetwork. Due to the size and capabilities of nanomachines, the traditional communication paradigms cannot be used for nanonetworks in which network nodes may be composed of just several atoms or molecules and scale on the orders of few nanometers. Instead, molecular communication is a promising solution approach for the nanoscale communication paradigm. However, molecular communication must be thoroughly investigated to realize nanoscale communication and nanonetworks for many envisioned applications such as nanoscale body area networks, and nanoscale molecular computers. In this paper, a simulation framework (NanoNS) for molecular nanonetworks is presented. The objective of the framework is to provide a simulation tool in order to create a better understanding of nanonetworks and facilitate the development of new communication techniques and the validation of theoretical results. The NanoNS framework is built on top of core components of a widely used network simulator (ns-2). It incorporates the simulation modules for various nanoscale communication paradigms based on a diffusive molecular communication channel. The details of NanoNS are discussed and some functional scenarios are defined to validate NanoNS. In addition to this, the numerical analyses of these functional scenarios and their experimental results are presented. The validation of NanoNS is shown via comparative evaluation of these experimental and numerical results. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.