A survey of mobility models for ad hoc network research

In the performance evaluation of a protocol for an ad hoc network, the protocol should be tested under realistic conditions including, but not limited to, a sensible transmission range, limited buffer space for the storage of messages, representative data traffic models and realistic movements of the mobile users (i.e. a mobility model). This paper is a survey of mobility models that are used in the simulations of ad hoc networks. We describe several mobility models that represent mobile nodes whose movements are independent of each other (i.e. entity mobility models) and several mobility models that represent mobile nodes whose movements are dependent on each other (i.e. group mobility models). The goal of this paper is to present a number of mobility models in order to offer researchers more informed choices when they are deciding on a mobility model to use in their performance evaluations. Lastly, we present simulation results that illustrate the importance of choosing a mobility model in the simulation of an ad hoc network protocol. Specifically, we illustrate how the performance results of an ad hoc network protocol drastically change as a result of changing the mobility model simulated. Copyright  2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.