Simulation Tools for Cognitive Radio Network: A Survey

Due to recent expansion of wireless communications, it has become impossible to cope with the allotment of the precious spectrum while resources for wireless communication are bounded and finite. Hence, the cognitive radio concept is introduced to ensure optimal utilization of these invaluable resources. By emerging research in the field of cognitive radio network, fresh researchers are looking for a suitable simulator for the cognitive radio network since the implementation and testbed is not practical and feasible invariably. Moreover, there is no simulator that has been designed with cognitive radio networks in mind. Furthermore, this research area is relatively new. Therefore, often it becomes very hard to decide which network simulator to work with, as the availability of reference is significantly low. As a result, much effort is required to make a proper decision. In this paper, we take a detailed look at current simulators used by researchers in the field of cognitive radio networks to help researchers identify appropriate tools for simulation. To further aid researchers, we classify the simulation tools, demonstrate their architectures, describe features, elucidate advantages and disadvantages of these tools, and report some open issues and challenges for future research. © 2025 The Authors.