eprintid: 1556
rev_number: 6
eprint_status: archive
userid: 6
dir: disk0/00/00/15/56
datestamp: 2013-04-30 13:43:46
lastmod: 2013-04-30 13:44:36
status_changed: 2013-04-30 13:43:46
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Karamshuk, Dmytro
creators_name: Boldrini, Chiara
creators_name: Conti, Marco
creators_name: Passarella, Andrea
creators_id: dmytro.karamshuk@imtlucca.it
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
title: Human mobility models for opportunistic networks
ispublished: pub
subjects: QA75
divisions: CSA
full_text_status: none
keywords: MANET networking, OppNets research, disconnected subnetworks, human mobility models, mobile ad hoc networks, mobile devices, opportunistic networks, taxonomy 
abstract: Mobile ad hoc networks enable communications between clouds of mobile devices without the need for a preexisting infrastructure. One of their most interesting evolutions are opportunistic networks, whose goal is to also enable communication in disconnected environments, where the general absence of an end-to-end path between the sender and the receiver impairs communication when legacy MANET networking protocols are used. The key idea of OppNets is that the mobility of nodes helps the delivery of messages, because it may connect, asynchronously in time, otherwise disconnected subnetworks. This is especially true for networks whose nodes are mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablets) carried by human users, which is the typical OppNets scenario. In such a network where the movements of the communicating devices mirror those of their owners, finding a route between two disconnected devices implies uncovering habits in human movements and patterns in their connectivity (frequencies of meetings, average duration of a contact, etc.), and exploiting them to predict future encounters. Therefore, there is a challenge in studying human mobility, specifically in its application to OppNets research. In this article we review the state of the art in the field of human mobility analysis and present a survey of mobility models. We start by reviewing the most considerable findings regarding the nature of human movements, which we classify along the spatial, temporal, and social dimensions of mobility. We discuss the shortcomings of the existing knowledge about human movements and extend it with the notion of predictability and patterns. We then survey existing approaches to mobility modeling and fit them into a taxonomy that provides the basis for a discussion on open problems and further directions for research on modeling human mobility.
date: 2011
date_type: published
publication: IEEE Communications Magazine
volume: 49
number: 12
publisher: IEEE
pagerange: 157-165
id_number: 10.1109/MCOM.2011.6094021
refereed: TRUE
official_url: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6094021&isnumber=6093994
citation:   Karamshuk, Dmytro and Boldrini, Chiara and Conti, Marco and Passarella, Andrea  Human mobility models for opportunistic networks.  IEEE Communications Magazine, 49 (12).  pp. 157-165.       (2011)