DroNS-3: Framework for Realistic Drone and Networking Simulators

Wireless communication in autonomous mobile agents has an inhibitive barrier to entry, especially in unmanned areal vehicles (UAV). This paper presents DroNS-3, a comprehensive library that aims to significantly lower the barrier to entry into the field of UAV research, reduce the risk of expensive mistakes, and make interfacing with leading flight and networking simulators simpler. DroNS-3 integrates the Ardupilot drone simulator with the NS-3 network simulator and provides an easy platform for quickly designing autonomous missions both in simulation and on physical drone platforms. The DroNS-3 autopilot library has already been successfully utilized during test flights and simulations for our published research and has been made open-source with supporting documentation on GitHub, making it a useful tool for the research community.