A spatial analysis of mobility models: Application to wireless ad hoc network simulation

We quantatively analyze the differences between a realistic mobility model, TRANSIMS, and several synthetic mobility models. New synthetic models were created by modifying the standard random way point model in several ways in an attempt to make it more realistic. We then compare these enhanced models with the TRANSIMS data as well as the random walk and standard random way-point models, using both new spatial based measures as well as network simulation performance. The velocity component and the spatial distributions of nodes over the space were analyzed and compared to the TRANSIMS data in order to be able to more generally analyze the models outside of the context of a network simulation. We also compared the performance of each model in various simulations of a wireless ad hoc network, with a particular emphasis on systematically varying some of the network parameters to determine the sensitivity of each model to differing network conditions. We then relate the simulation results to the more general spatial methods of mobility model comparisons that we developed.