Enhancing usability for the wireless charging vehicle simulator

In our previous work, a simulation framework was proposed to focus on imitating the behavior of wireless charging vehicles (WCVs) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) because current mainstream simulators have very limited support on simulation of WCVs. The WCV is an integration of a mobile vehicle and a wireless power transfer broadcaster, which is used to recharge sensors wirelessly to prolong the lifetime of sensor networks. In the study of WCVs, simulators are extensively used to study the routing algorithms and behaviors of WCVs because it is very costly to build a WSN testbed and many specifications are not standardized. However, mainstream WSN simulators require researchers to develop and integrate their WCV modules. Therefore, the previously proposed framework aims to provide a simple framework for simulating of wireless power transfer and mobile vehicles. In this study, to further strength the usability of the proposed simulation framework, a graphic user interface is introduced to allow users to assign sensors' location and specify simulation parameters.