No, you can use the default emulator or other tools like Genymotion.
You should just consider that a real device might be handy as you get a better feeling of your app when you have it on a real device.
Also there are limitations based on the emulator you use. For example the graphic power might be way slower than on a real device. Also other stuff like battery, camera etc is basically just emulated as well, so it might work on the emulator but not on a real device.
solved Is it required to use android mobile to develop an android application [closed]