A Mobility Framework for Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

Mobility management in ad hoc wireless networks faces many challenges. Mobility constantly causes the network topology to change. In order to keep accurate routes, the routing protocols must dynamically readjust to such changes. Thus, routing update traffic overhead is significantly high. Different mobility patterns have in general different impact on a specific network protocol or application. Consequently the network performance will be strongly influenced by the nature of the mobility pattern. In the past, mobility models were rather casually used to evaluate network performance under different routing protocols. Here, we propose a universal mobility framework, Mobility Vector Model, which can be used for recreating the various mobility patterns produced in different applications. Case studies on optimal transmission range as a function of mobility and on network performance under various mobility models are presented in the paper. Simulation results show that excessively large transmission range will not improve network performance significantly because of the increased collisions. There is an optimal range between 1.5 - 2 times the mean node distance for free space channel. Also, simulation results show that different mobility models will have different impact on the network performance for a variety of routing protocols (AODV, DSR, FSR). When choosing routing protocols for ad hoc network applications, performance studies under multiple mobility models are recommended. The Mobility Vector model can provide a realistic and flexible framework for reproducing various models.