Mobility Models in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks: The Overtaking Impact

Abstract

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) are basically characterized by the high mobility of nodes, making the mobility model one of the most important parameters that should be carefully selected when evaluating any protocol. To get accurate results, the model should be as realistic as possible, and involve road-maps with all the constraints and facilities related to the vehicular movement. In this paper we first survey some mobility models that are relevant to VANETs, then we present our vehicular mobility simulator that allows to generate mobility trace files for both GloMoSim and ns2. Finally, we use our simulator together with GloMoSim to investigate the effect of some realistic parameters, namely the usage of a road map vs. movement in an open area, and especially the effect of the overtaking, one of the facilities enabled by many roads that has never been considered in literature.