Investigating the Effects of Mobility Metrics in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract: Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are formed by a collection of mobile nodes (MNs) that are capable of moving from one location to another location. These networks are widely identified by their unique characteristics such as lack of infrastructure, mobility and multi-hop communication. Unlike traditional (wired) networks, MNs in MANETs do not rely on any infrastructure or central management. Mobility allows MNs to move at different values of speed. Multi-hop communication is used to deliver data across the entire network. Due to mobility and changing network topology, the performance of these networks is significantly affected by the choice of mobility models and routing protocols. Our research work aims to evaluate the effects of mobility metrics on distinguishing between entity and group mobility models in MANETs. In addition, we demonstrate the interactions between mobility metrics and performance metrics. We also investigate how effective are the mobility metrics and which metrics can clearly distinguish between entity and group mobility models? We performed extensive simulations using network simulator, ns-2.35, to capture mobility metrics as well as different performance metrics. Simulation results reveal the efficiency of mobility metrics on distinguishing between entity and group mobility models. We also obtain useful interactions between mobility metrics and performance metrics. The results presented in this paper provide new insights into the variability of mobility metrics in MANETs. Furthermore, our simulation results reveal better understanding of the relationships between mobility metrics (e.g., relative speed, node degree, network partitions etc.) and performance metrics (e.g., packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay and normalized routing load