Vehicular mobility simulation for VANETs

During the last few years, continuous progresses in wireless communications have opened new research fields in computer networking, aimed at extending data networks connectivity to environments where wired solutions are impracticable. Among these, vehicular traffic is attracting a growing attention from both academia and industry, due to the amount and importance of the related applications, ranging from road safety to traffic control, up to mobile entertainment. Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are self-organized networks built up from moving vehicles, and are part of the broader class of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs). Because of their peculiar characteristics, VANETs require the definition of specific networking techniques, whose feasibility and performance are usually tested by means of simulation. One of the main challenges posed by VANETs simulations is the faithful characterization of vehicular mobility at both macroscopic and microscopic levels, leading to realistic non-uniform distributions of cars and velocity, and unique connectivity dynamics. In this paper we first present and describe VanetMobiSim, a freely available generator of realistic vehicular movement traces for networks simulators. Then, VanetMobiSim is validated by illustrating how the interaction between featured macro- and micro-mobility is able to reproduce typical phenomena of vehicular traffic.