IoT Mesh Network Routing Simulator (3D)

Sensor Mesh

Node count 18

Radio range 4.2

Packet rate 1.0×

Nodes reachable

–

Avg hop count

–

Delivered

–

Dropped

–

How it works

Instead of one sensor talking straight to a gateway, a mesh network lets nodes relay for each other: a packet greedily hops to whichever in-range neighbor is closest to the gateway, repeating until it either arrives or gets stuck with no closer neighbor in range. Every relay costs the forwarding node battery, so nodes that sit on a lot of routes die first — and once a node goes dark, the mesh has to find a different path around it, exactly like real self-healing sensor networks (Zigbee, Thread, mesh LoRa).

next(node) = argmin_{n ∈ neighbors(node), n≠node}  dist(n, gateway)
              subject to  dist(node,n) ≤ range  and  dist(n,gateway) < dist(node,gateway)
battery(n) -= drainPerHop   on every relay
node offline  ⇔  battery(n) ≤ 0

Node count — how many sensors populate the mesh; more nodes means more possible relay paths.
Radio range — the hop distance each node can reach; too short and the mesh fragments into unreachable islands.
Packet rate — how often new packets originate from random nodes.
Relay battery drain — toggle whether relaying costs battery; with it on, watch heavily-used hub nodes go dark and traffic reroute around them.

Real-world relevance: this hop-by-hop, battery-aware routing is why mesh protocols outlast a single long-range link in the field — traffic keeps finding a way to the gateway even as individual nodes fail, at the cost of the relay nodes' own battery.

Gateway Node — healthy Node — low battery Node — offline

⚠ Couldn't load the 3D engineThree.js failed to load from the CDN. Check your connection and reload.