ns3sionna

ns3sionna is a software module that brings realistic channel simulation using ray tracing from Sionna (https://nvlabs.github.io/sionna/) to the widely used ns-3 network simulator (https://github.com/nsnam).

Outdoor scenario (Munich)	Results from simulation

More information can be found in our paper: Ns3Sionna paper

Installation

We recommend using Linux (e.g. Ubuntu 22 or higher) and a multi-core/GPU compute node.

0. Install all dependencies required by ns-3 and those needed by our framework: ZMQ, Protocol Buffers:

apt-get update
apt-get install gcc g++ python3 python3-pip cmake
apt-get install libzmq5 libzmq5-dev
apt-get install libprotobuf-dev
apt-get install protobuf-compiler
apt-get install pkg-config

1. Download and install ns3

wget https://www.nsnam.org/releases/ns-allinone-3.40.tar.bz2
tar xf ns-allinone-3.40.tar.bz2
cd ns-allinone-3.40

2. Clone ns3sionna repository into contrib directory of ns3:

cd ./ns-3.40/contrib
git clone https://github.com/tkn-tub/ns3sionna.git ./sionna

Note: it is important to use the sionna as the name of the ns3sionna app directory.

3. Configure and build ns-3 project:

cd ../
./ns3 configure --enable-examples
./ns3 build

Note: ns3sionna Protocol Buffer messages (C++ and Python) are build during configure.

4. Install server component of ns3sionna located in model/ns3sionna (Python3 required)

cd ./contrib/sionna/model/ns3sionna/
python3 -m venv sionna-venv
source sionna-venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 tests/test_imports.py # all packages should be correctly installed

or using conda:

cd ./contrib/sionna/model/ns3sionna/
conda create -n sionna-venv python=3.12
conda activate sionna-venv
pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 tests/test_imports.py # all packages should be correctly installed

Note: ns3sionna was tested with Sionna==1.2.1.

5. Start server component of ns3sionna

cd ./contrib/sionna/model/ns3sionna
./run.sh

Note: if you experience problems with Protocol Buffers use:

run_python_proto.sh

5. Start a ns-3 example script (in separate terminal)

cd ns-3.40/contrib/sionna/examples
./example-sionna-sensing-mobile.sh

Note: you need to have matplotlib installed to see the results.

Examples

All examples can be found here.

Usage in HPC cluster

Using Docker here

Using singularity here

Current limitations

• SISO only
• under development: MIMO

Contact

• Anatolij Zubow, TU-Berlin, zubow@tkn
• Sascha Roesler, TU-Berlin, zubow@tkn
• tkn = tkn.tu-berlin.de

How to reference ns3sionna?

Please use the following bibtex:

@techreport{zubow2024ns3-preprint,
    author = {Zubow, Anatolij and Pilz, Yannik and R{\"{o}}sler, Sascha and Dressler, Falko},
    doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2412.20524},
    title = {{Ns3 meets Sionna: Using Realistic Channels in Network Simulation}},
    institution = {arXiv},
    month = {12},
    number = {2412.20524},
    type = {cs.NI},
    year = {2024},
   }