A survey on mobility models for performance analysis in tactical mobile networks

In scenarios of military operations and catastrophes – even when there is no infrastructure available or left – there is a need for communication. Due to the specific context the communication systems used in these tactical scenarios need to be as reliable as possible. Thus, the performance of these systems has to be evaluated. Beside field-tests, computer simulations are an interesting alternative concerning costs, scalability, etc. Results of simulative performance evaluation strongly depend on the models used. Since tactical networks consist of, or, at least, contain mobile devices, the mobility model used has a decisive impact. However, in common performance evaluations mainly simple random-based models are used. In the paper we will provide classification and survey of existing mobility models. Furthermore, we will review these models concerning the requirements for tactical scenarios. Keywords— mobility models, performance analysis, wireless networks, mobile networks, tactical networks.