Realistic mobility model for mobile ad hoc network evaluation

The performance evaluation of a protocol for a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) calls for a mobility model to generate realistic movement of the mobile users or nodes. In this paper we present a new realistic mobility model (RMM) which contains two main features, a matrix-based representation of the real-world environment and a novel path searching method to determine the paths a mobile node takes on the simulation plane. The former is capable of capturing geographic restrictions in realistic scenarios, such as obstacles and well-defined pathways, and the latter provides a more realistic movement than that of the shortest path-planning. Our simulation results show that the performance of ad hoc network protocols when nodes moving according to the RMM are significantly different from that of the commonly used random waypoint model (RWP).