A survey and comparative study of simulators for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs)

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) are classified as an application of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs) that has the potential in improving road safety and providing Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). Vehicular communication system facilitates communication devices for exchange of information among vehicles and vehicles and Road Side Units (RSUs).The era of vehicular adhoc networks is now gaining attention and momentum. Researchers and developers have built VANET simulation tools to allow the study and evaluation of various routing protocols, various emergency warning protocols and others VANET applications. Simulation of VANET routing protocols and its applications is fundamentally different from MANETs simulation because in VANETs, vehicular environment impose new issues and requirements, such as multi-path fading, roadside obstacles, trip models, traffic flow models, traffic lights, traffic congestion, vehicular speed and mobility, drivers behaviour etc. This paper presents a comparative study of various publicly available VANET simulation tools. Currently, there are network simulators, VANET mobility generators and VANET simulators are publicly available. In particular, this paper contrast their software characteristics, graphical user interface, accuracy of simulation, ease of use, popularity, input requirements, output visualization capabilities etc. Keywords-Ad-hoc network, ITS (Intelligent Transportation System), MANET, Simulation, VANET.