A simulation study on a WSN for emergency management

Wireless Sensors Networks (WSN) are one of the ways to provide the communication infrastructure for advanced applications based on the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. IoT supports high level applications over WSN to provide services in a number of fields. WSN are also suitable to support critical applications, as the supporting technologies are consolidated and standard network services can be used on top of the specific layers. Furthermore, generic distributed or network-enabled software can be run over the nodes of a WSN. In this paper we evaluate and compare performances of IEEE 802.llg and 802.1 In, two implementations of the popular Wi-Fi technology, to support the deployment and utilization of an energy management support system, used to monitor the field by a team of firefighters during a mission. Evaluation on an example scenario is done by using ns-3, an open network simulator characterized by its realistic details, to understand the actual limitations of the two standards besides theoretical limits.