Probe Subsystem

Simulative evaluation in the wireless communication domain is commonly used to measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as Delay, Throughput, Spectral Efficiency, Cell Capacity that characterize a new communication system. Research engineers must answer the question if a new system can achieve a defined performance (in terms of KPIs) in a set scenarios. The optimization problem is to find the right set of system parameters and configuration settings that maximize the KPIs.

This Blueprint specifies the Probe Subsystem of openWNS that assist researchers in their optimization task. The Probe Subsystem allows a user to configure arbitrary KPI over parameter plots within their simulations. Parameters may be fixed system parameters (set at configuration time) or may be variable parameters that may change during the simulation, may be available on a per packet base, or may even change totally uncorrelated to the involved communication protocols. For example it should be possible to gather the following output from the simulation

   SINR distribution over area
   Packet loss ratio over SINR
   Packet delay over hop count
   Mean Total Transmission Power per Station Type (Base Station, Relay, User Terminal)
   etc.

This Blueprint focusses on the sorting and distribution of KPI measurements to appropriate measurement sinks during a simulation run to derive such outputs. It does not focus on the statistical evaluation of those measurements.