Mobility Models in Inter-Vehicle Communications Literature

With reference to the vehicular traffic scenario depicted in Figure 1, we define as i the vehicle whose behavior is currently under investigation. At a given time instant t, such vehicle is at a position xi(t), and travels with a speed vi(t), meaning that its instantaneous acceleration can be expressed as dvi(t) dt . Indexes i − 1 and i + 1 identify the back and front vehicles with respect to i, which are located at xi−1(t) and xi+1(t), and travel at velocity vi−1(t) and vi+1(t), respectively, at time t. The front bumper to back bumper distance between i and i+1 is identified as ∆xi(t). Indexes j−1 and j+1 identify the back and front vehicles with respect to i, in a different lane, considered for lane change. These vehicles are at positions xj−1(t) and xj+1(t) and travel with speed vj−1(t) and vj+1(t), respectively. Also, we denote input parameters for the vehicular mobility descriptions with consistent notation in different models. The symbols used are listed in Table I.