2008/10/21 by Wei-jen Hsu, Thrasyvoulos Spyropoulos, Hsu, Wei-jen +5
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis #Mobile Ad Hoc Networks #Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI) #Opportunistic and Delay-Tolerant Networks
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0810.3935
openalex publication_date 2008/10/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Realistic mobility models are fundamental to evaluate the performance of protocols in mobile ad hoc networks. Unfortunately, there are no mobility models that capture the non-homogeneous behaviors in both space and time commonly found in reality, while at the same time being easy to use and analyze. Motivated by this, we propose a time-variant community mobility model, referred to as the TVC model, which realistically captures spatial and temporal correlations. We devise the communities that lead to skewed location visiting preferences, and time periods that allow us to model time dependent behaviors and periodic re-appearances of nodes at specific locations. To demonstrate the power and flexibility of the TVC model, we use it to generate synthetic traces that match the characteristics of a number of qualitatively different mobility traces, including wireless LAN traces, vehicular mobility traces, and human encounter traces. More importantly, we show that, despite the high level of realism achieved, our TVC model is still theoretically tractable. To establish this, we derive a number of important quantities related to protocol performance, such as the average node degree, the hitting time, and the meeting time, and provide examples of how to utilize this theory to guide design decisions in routing protocols.