Event-driven, role-based mobility in disaster recovery networks

One of the most important tools in understanding the complex characteristics of disaster recovery networks is simulation. While many mobility models exist for simulating ad hoc networks, they do not realistically capture the behavior of objects in disaster scenarios. We propose a high level event- & role-based mobility paradigm in which objects' movement patterns are caused by environmental events. The introduction of roles allows different objects to uniquely and realistically react to events. For instance some roles, such as civilian, may flee from events, whereas other roles, such as police, may be attracted to events. Furthermore, to incorporate reaction from multiple events in a realistic fashion, we propose a low-level gravity-based mobility model in which events apply forces to objects. Simulation results show that our disaster mobility paradigm coupled with our gravitational mobility model creates a network topology that differs from the popular Random Walk mobility model. This new disaster mobility model opens up the door for more realistic simulation of communication and routing protocols for disaster recovery networks.