Progressing toward realistic mobility models in VANET simulations

Much progress can be observed in the domain of Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) research looking back at the last decade. It can be seen that studies of vehicular communication protocols in the context of VANETs are typically based on simulation models. This approach has two major prerequisites: First, detailed network simulation of all layers of communication protocols is necessary as provided by a wide variety of tools by the networking community. Secondly, realistic simulation of vehicles´ mobility, i.e., an exact modeling of road traffic, is needed to estimate positions and movements of involved components. The contributions of this article are twofold: First, a survey of the evolution of mobility modeling in VANET simulations is provided, outlining the simulation strategies typically used. Secondly, this article investigates how recent advances in bidirectional coupling of road traffic microsimulation and network simulation lead to more realistic results at comparably low computational cost. In conclusion, this article advocates to employ such techniques that are openly available for further studies of new communication protocols and mechanisms in the domain of VANET research.