VANET simulators: an updated review

Research on VANETs (vehicular ad hoc networks) date back to the beginning of the 2000s. The possibility of enabling communication between vehicles through a wireless network stimulated the creation of new protocols, devices, and diverse utilization scenarios. Due to the intrinsic difficulties of using a real testbed to evaluate these research contributions, several simulators were developed at the time. Recently, with the advent of autonomous vehicles and the emergence of novel technologies (e.g., 5G and edge computing), new research challenges on VANETs are coming into sight. Therefore, revisiting VANET simulators is required to identify if they are still capable of evaluating these new scenarios. This paper presents an updated review of VANET simulators, showing their current state and capabilities to assess novel scenarios in VANET research. Based on this analysis, we identify open research challenges that should be addressed in current and future VANET simulators.