Impact of NS-2 as FOSS Simulation Tool for Research in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks

Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs) is considered a state-of-the-art area of research in communication networks. A number of simulation tools have been used and recommended for various research works in VANETs. The Network Simulator 2 (NS-2) is a free and open source software (FOSS), used for performing simulations in communication networks. It is well established that NS-2 is the most widely used simulation platform in communication networks. While relying on records gathered from the online IEEE publication database, this paper quantitatively highlight the impact NS-2 has on VANETs research community. This novel work shows that among a list of used network simulators, NS-2 stands out as the most favorable and widely used simulation tool for research in VANETs to this date. Analysis shows that approximately 877 research papers, working in VANETs while using NS-2, where published in different conferences and journals & magazines in the last ten years. Alongside the quantitative analysis, this paper backs-up NS-2's popularity for research in VANETs by the impact of free & open source regime in making NS-2 a potential candidate for VANETs simulations.