S~4W: a problem-solving environment for wireless system design

摘要

This work describes the Site-Specific System Simulator for Wireless System Design (S~4W), a problem-solving environment (PSE) that integrates visualization and computational tools with a high-level graphical user interface. S~4W improves the ability of wireless system engineers to design an indoor wireless system by encouraging them to think in terms of designing the system for optimal performance. Issues of computation management, data management, and location of resources are hidden from the user. The complex nature of data sets in the domain of wireless simulations calls for a customized set of visualization tools. Therefore, a number of ad hoc visualizations were developed for S~4W. A study comparing the integrated system with an earlier, unintegrated version is presented. This helps to demonstrate the productivity gains that a PSE provides.