Simulation of the effects of evaporation ducts on maritime wireless communication

This paper describes a tool created to simulate the effects of evaporation ducts on wireless communication networks which are close to the sea surface. The tool is an extension of the ns-3 network simulator and implements two propagation loss models: Two Ray, which models reflection effects; and Three Ray, which models the effects of both reflection and refraction. As the Three Ray model has the evaporation duct height as one of its parameters, a model to estimate this height based on weather conditions (meteorological measurements) was also implemented. The tool allows us to show how signal is weakened with the distance from the transmitter to the receiver, under different evaporation duct heights. It has been of increading interest to model these effects due to the importance of wireless networks located over the sea surface for supporting different types of applications, such as surveillance, security and ecological monitoring. Extending ns-3 is of particular importance, as it is one of the most largely used simulators for designing and evaluating communication networks.