Does mobility matter?

Abstract

In modern society, wireless devices are commonly carried by humans. The wireless communication is therefore affected by pedestrian mobility in urban outdoor and indoor spaces which is the scenario we consider in this work. Many of the mobility models currently used for evaluating wireless communication systems have poor resemblance to reality. Although advances have recently been made, there is still a lack of understanding on which elements of mobility affect system performance. In the civil-engineering field of transport and urban planning there exist advanced pedestrian mobility models, used for designing and dimensioning public spaces for pedestrian crowds and emergency evacuation. These models capture micro-mobility of pedestrians better than most mobility models used in mobile networking since the application domain requires that they realistically capture node interactions with its physical environment as well as other nodes. In this work we use Legion Studio, a commercial simulator, to explore which elements of pedestrian mobility are important with respect to system performance and how sensitive the connectivity metrics of nodes are to input mobility parameters. These studies give insight into whether relatively simple mobility models suffice for evaluating wireless systems. Furthermore, they contribute to our understanding of which parameters are important for modelling mobility and the accuracy in which these parameters need to be estimated to give dependable results.

The Making of a Sustainable Wireless City? Mapping Public Wi-Fi Access in Shanghai

“…The impact of wireless city development is significant in many aspects, such as providing mobility values [22], changing travel behaviors [23], altering the perception of community and forming social networks in urban space [24][25][26]. Previous literature found that in wireless cities, transaction costs can be reduced [27] and social well-being of citizens is better off through closer social interactions [22,28,29].…”

Hybrid scheme to enable DTN routing protocols to efficiently exploit stable MANET contacts

“…Whether all messages in that category can be exchanged, is depending on the duration of the contact. Therefore, the recognition and exploitation of such contacts is essential for the performance in DTN networks [12].…”

Building Realistic Mobility Models for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

“…Examples of realistic mobility modelling are as follows: modelling mobility in disaster area scenarios (Aschenbruck et al, 2009, [102]; Krug et al, 2014, [99]) integrate with event driven (e.g., environmental events), role-based (e.g., police, civilians), and gravitational mobility model (e.g., attraction to events or otherwise; Nelson et al, 2007, [103]); post-disaster mobility (PDM) model to model civilian and rescue activities in a disaster-struck area; environmental-aware mobility (EAM) model (Lu et al, 2006, [104]); MObility model generator for VEhicular networks (MOVE) for generation of realistic vehicular mobility models (Karnadi et al, 2007, [105]); and working day movement model that intuitively depicts movement patterns of people in their everyday life (Ekman et al, 2008, [106]). Similarly, Fogue and colleagues (2013) [107] identify key factors for mobility models in VANETs, while Helgason et al (2010) highlight the importance of understanding input parameters for mobility modelling and their associated, required level of accuracy in order to yield reliable results. To reiterate, the focus of this paper is three-fold: the size and shape of the world being used in the model, the elapsed time being simulated by the model, and the number and movement of the nodes within the model.…”