Investigating the impacts of entity and group mobility models in MANETs

Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) represent complex distributed systems that do not rely on any infrastructure or centralized administration. These networks consist of wireless mobile devices which communicate with each other over the wireless channel. Because each mobile node (MN) has a limited transmission range, multi-hop communication is necessary to deliver data across the entire network. Such type of communication requires routing protocols which are capable of discovering multi-hop routes between the sending and receiving nodes. In addition, various mobility models are used to mimic the walking patterns of MNs in real-world environments. These models are generally categorized into two types, i.e., (i) entity and (ii) group-based mobility models depending upon their functionalities. In this paper, we assessed the impacts of different networking contexts on the performance of different mobility models. We selected Random Waypoint (RWP) and Gauss-Markov (GM) models from the first category and Reference Point group (RPGM) and Nomadic Community (NCMM) mobility models from the second. We performed extensive simulations using Network Simulator (NS-2). Simulation results reveal that there is a decline in cost as the speed of MNs is increased. In addition, node density differently impacted the performance of both types of models. The recommendation of this research will provide better understanding of the different mobility models in MANETs and their uses in real-world environments such as search and rescue operations, battlefield situations, tracking operations, people-centric networking and many more.