MiXiM: the physical layer an architecture overview

Simulating the physical layer of wireless communication remains a challenge. Communication standards like OFDM or MIMO systems go beyond the simple single narrow frequency band, single antenna model used in popular simulators. Yet, these technologies gain popularity, since they provide researchers with a plethora of possibilities that can be explored to invent new protocols or improve existing ones. However, building a detailed and sufficiently accurate model for such complex systems is a tremendous task that takes a lot of time. In this paper we present the physical layer model of MiXiM, which tackles this task. It provides the researcher with an easy to use interface to the wireless transmission medium. It models the wireless medium in all three dimensions (time, space and frequency) supporting the implementation of future wireless communication standards, but at the same time also supports easy modeling and simulation of traditional single frequency systems.