The experimental work vs. simulation in the study of mobile ad hoc networks

Simulators and physical testbeds have been widely embraced by the mobile ad hoc network research community in the development of new and improved systems and protocols. The benefits of using simulations include easy and fast deployment, controllable and flexible environment, better scalability, and repeatable results. This chapter reviews the existing testbeds and simulation tools and then discuss issues that cause gaps between their results. It also opines on possible avenues for the improvement of simulation tools and testbed environments. Simulators and testbeds are the two tools that researchers can exploit to assess the performance of MANET solutions. Future prospectives related with simulator and testbed are focused on three main areas: interoperability, accuracy enhancement, and new model definition.