Probability distribution of link life time in vehicular ad hoc networks

In this paper, we present an analytical model to find the probability density function (PDF) of link life time in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). Assuming free flow traffic state and the vehicle speed to be a random variable with uniform distribution, we analyse the impact of vehicle mobility, vehicle density and transmission range on the link duration PDF and mean link duration in VANETs. Our analytical and simulation results suggest that, in the free flow uncongested traffic state in which vehicle speed has uniform probability distribution, the link duration PDF can be approximated as lognormal with appropriate parametrization. We present the Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness-of-fit test results to justify this claim.