A Performance Evaluation of the Collection Tree Protocol Based on its Implementation for the Castalia Wireless Sensor Networks Simulator

Abstract

Many wireless sensor network applications rely on the availability of a collection service to route data packets towards a sink node. The service is typically accessed through welldefined interfaces so as to hide the details of its implementation. Providing for efficient network operation, however, often requires investigating the interplay between specific collection services and application-level algorithms. To enable a smooth evaluation of these mutual dependencies, we implemented a reference collection protocol, known as CTP, as a module for the Castalia wireless sensor networks simulator. Castalia is a wellknown and widely used simulator but its standard distribution only provides for a basic collection module. By implementing a more advanced protocol like CTP we extend and improve the application scope of Castalia. In this report, we describe our implementation and present a study of the performance of CTP. All the software modules developed in the context of this work are available upon request from the authors.