Graphical Visualization of MAC Traces for Wireless Ad-hoc Networks Simulated in ns2 1

Abstract- Many network simulators (e.g., ns2) are already being used for performing wired and wireless network simulations. But, with the current graphical visualization support in-built in ns2, it is difficult to understand the node status, packet status and the MAC level events particularly for Ad-hoc networks. In this paper, we extend the visualization support in ns-2 that should help research community in the area of wireless networks to analyze different MAC level events in an efficient manner. In particular, we have developed two types of visualizations namely, temporal and spatial. Temporal visualization helps to analyze success or failure of a packet with respect to time while spatial visualization helps to understand the effects due to proximity of nodes. The trace is made highly configurable in terms of different attributes like specific nodes and time duration. Index terms- Network event tracing, wireless networks, networ