FS-IIoTSim: a flexible and scalable simulation framework for performance evaluation of industrial Internet of things systems

Abstract

This paper presents a flexible and scalable network simulation framework (FS-IIoTSim) for performance evaluation of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) system. FS-IIoTSim provides flexibility and scalability for performance analysis of the IIoT system by supporting not only existing legacy industrial sensor network communication models, but also user protocol modification, in order to accommodate the complexity of systems such as communication standards, smart machine traffic, and applications over the complex IIoT environment. The FS-IIoTSim consists of three parts: (1) scenario modeling, (2) performance evaluation, and (3) user interface. Each of these parts interacts and cooperates with each other to simulate a target IIoT system. Scenario modeling utilizes user simulation scenarios to create an industrial sensor network (ISN) system model and perform simulations to generate a trace file recorded with log information about the device’s operations. Performance evaluation is an analytical process of a trace file, generated in the scenario modeling part, which is used to derive a user’s preferred performance metric. The user interface part plays a role in interfacing with the detailed operations of the other parts. Within the user interface part, the user can set and control the FS-IIoTSim framework. In order to prove the effectiveness of this FS-IIoTSim, experiments were conducted in various industrial application scenarios, and simulation performance was compared and analyzed with a dedicated simulator. The experimental results showed that FS-IIoTSim provided more effective approaches to modeling and performance analysis of real ISN environments, compared to a dedicated simulator.