Towards System Level Simulations of Public Safety Applications over 5G NR Sidelink

The New Radio (NR) sidelink (SL) interface was initially specified to support NR Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) applications and lately to support NR Proximity Services (ProSe) public safety applications. Network support requirements differ between the operational demands of these two types of applications. Building upon an existing ns-3 NR V2X simulator, this paper details the extensions made to the simulator to cater to NR ProSe public safety applications. We use as case study the Mission Critical Push-to-Talk (MCPTT) application, a keystone of group communication in 5G NR public safety networks. We demonstrate through simulation results that our enhancements are essential for a more accurate representation of public safety applications.