ABSTRACT
There will be a big leap in mobile communications in the coming years. Heterogeneous infrastructures, including ubiquitous solutions such as the Internet of Things, Machine to Machine Communication, and Intelligent Transportation Systems will be an integral part of mobile communication networks. Cloudification, softwarization and visualization will be the major paradigm changes in the design of networks to achieve flexible and efficient systems providing a high capacity with minimal delay. To materialize this vision, many research challenges have to be addressed and validated on simulators or test beds. Prior to deployment of developed features in 5G systems, experimentations of the proposals under realistic and practical operating circumstances are required. Well-designed simulators and test beds for 5G experimentation are needed towards this aim. This chapter explains and analyzes some of the 5G simulators, federations, test beds, and their prototypes by considering some research and design issues. The joint requirements and the comparison criteria for 5G test beds are explained and presented. This chapter also explains and compares the reviewed 5G simulators in terms of some shared design and research properties.
