Realistic Human Mobility Model for Opportunistic Networks

Abstract

Within the opportunistic wireless network research community, the evaluation of a new network protocol depends almost entirely on simulation. Using simulation enables a researcher to test a wide variety of scenarios at a low cost compared to using a real system. In opportunistic networks, the mobility of users plays a key role in data delivery; therefore, the value of the validation of a data forwarding protocol is highly dependent on the mobility models used in the simulation. In this paper, popular mobility models are assessed. Based on this analysis, a novel mobility model “Realistic Human Mobility Model” (RHMM) is proposed. The performance of the RHMM is evaluated and compared with real traces. The results show that RHMM generates mobility patterns that present characteristics similar to real ones and it has the same statistical properties identified in the real human mobility patterns.