A performance analysis of VANETs routing protocols using different mobility models

In order to evaluate a vehicular network performance it is important to develop and use mobility models that accurately capture the realistic mobility characteristics of moving vehicles. In this paper, we present performance evaluation of various routing protocols including SIFT, GPSR and GOSR using different mobility models such as Random Waypoint Model (RWM), Fluid Traffic Model (FTM) and Intelligent Driver Model with Intersection Management (IDM-IM). We present simulation results that illustrate the importance of choosing a mobility model in the simulation of a vehicular network protocol. We illustrate how the performance results considerably change as a result of changing the simulated mobility model. We show how unreliable results can be obtained by using some models such as RWM and FTM. In addition, we demonstrate how more realistic mobility models such as IDM-IM often lead to more accurate results.