VANET Simulators: A Survey on Mobility and Routing Protocols

Abstract

Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are an instance of Ad-hoc networks, which are general-purpose distributed wireless networks interconnected without the need of any centralized infrastructure. VANETs are expected to be massively deployed in upcoming vehicles, because their use can improve the safety of driving and makes new forms of inter-vehicle communications possible as well. The simulation of VANETs requires two different components: a vehicular traffic simulator, capable to provide an accurate mobility model for the nodes of a VANET, and a network simulator, for simulating the behavior of a wireless network. In this paper, we provide a survey of mobility models proposed for VANETs. We analyze challenges and future perspectives of VANET simulators and current routing solutions for VANET.