DAWN-Sim: A Distributed Algorithm Simulator for Wireless Ad-hoc Networks in Python

Internet of things, wireless sensor networks, mobile ad-hoc networks, and other modern networking paradigms were all made possible by the extensive adoption of distributed algorithms. Although the software for the devices in those networks must be carefully implemented for the specific hardware and platforms, the underlying algorithms are mostly universal. Accordingly, teaching, studying, and developing distributed algorithms can best be practiced using simulator tools. Existing simulators are either too complicated and hard to use or too simple and missing important functionality. So we have developed a novel simulator tool that supports settable and killable timers, node sleeping, and customizable node mobility features. It is written in Python using the SimPy module and is based on an earlier simulator called WsnSimPy.