  The problem of designing and simulating optimal transmission protocols for
energy harvesting wireless networks has recently received considerable
attention, thus requiring for an accurate modeling of the energy harvesting
process and a consequent redesign of the simulation framework to include it.
While the current ns-3 energy framework allows the definition of new energy
sources that incorporate the contribution of an energy harvester, the
integration of an energy harvester component into an existing energy source is
not straightforward using the existing energy framework. In this poster, we
propose an extension of the energy framework currently released with ns-3 in
order to explicitly introduce the concept of an energy harvester. Starting from
the definition of the general interface, we then provide the implementation of
two simple models for the energy harvester. In addition, we extend the set of
implementations of the current energy framework to include a model for a
supercapacitor energy source and a device energy model for the energy
consumption of a sensor. Finally, we introduce the concept of an energy
predictor, that gathers information from the energy source and harvester and
use this information to predict the amount of energy that will be available in
the future, and we provide an example implementation. As a result of these
efforts, we believe that our contributions to the ns-3 energy framework will
provide a useful tool to enhance the quality of simulations of energy-aware
wireless networks.
