A Taxonomy and Survey of Microscopic Mobility Models from the Mobile Networking Domain

A mobility model is used to generate the trajectories of mobile nodes in simulations when developing new algorithms for mobile networks. A model must realistically reflect the scenario in which the technology will be used to reliably validate the algorithm. Considerable progress has been made toward realistic mobility models in the academic literature, and models have become quite complex. A consistent taxonomy has not yet been established for this field. A new multifaceted taxonomy is presented in this work that provides a framework for authors to clearly and consistently describe their models, making them easier to understand and reproduce. By surveying the application field of mobile communication networks, a common nomenclature and a high-level view of existing literature are provided, which are required to reduce duplication of effort and to enable a better sense of the way forward. A tactical scenario demonstrates the application of the taxonomy to model construction.