Python simulation code supporting the MSc thesis: An Operational Model for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-assisted Device-to-Device Relaying
This repository contains the custom Python discrete-event simulation code developed for the master's thesis "An Operational Model for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-assisted Device-to-Device Relaying." The primary research objective is to systematically evaluate the performance of a proposed 3GPP-aligned, UAV-governed resource allocation strategy against standard 5G NR Sidelink Mode 2 protocols in network-denied emergency scenarios. Built using the SimPy library for event-driven timing and PyQt6 for spatial visualisation, the simulator models both UE-to-UE (U2U) and UE-to-Network (U2N) architectures under scaling ground user densities. Simulated data generation is driven by bursty, emergency-focused traffic profiles encompassing VoIP calls and discrete data payloads. The resulting output dataset consists of network performance logs, including physical and half-duplex collision counts, packet delivery ratios, end-to-end latency, scheduling delays, and channel quality metrics (SNR) used to validate the benefits of autonomous UAV mobility.