Mobility Models for Delay Tolerant Network: A Survey

Abstract

Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) is an emerging networking technology that is widely used in the environment where end-to-end paths do not exist. DTN follows store-carry-forward mechanism to route data. This mechanism exploits the mobility of nodes and hence the performances of DTN routing and application protocols are highly dependent on the underlying mobility of nodes and its characteristics. Therefore, suitable mobility models are required to be incorporated in the simulation tools to evaluate DTN protocols across many scenarios. In DTN mobility modelling literature, a number of mobility models have been developed based on synthetic theory and real world mobility traces. Furthermore, many researchers have developed specific application oriented mobility models. All these models do not provide accurate evaluation in the all scenarios. Therefore, model selection is an important issue in DTN protocol simulation. In this study, we have summarized various widely used mobility models and made a comparison of their performances. Finally, we have concluded with future research directions in mobility modelling for DTN simulation.