Research on
mobility modeling has reached a critical point. In spite of
the large number of available proposals, networking
evaluation is still done with acknowledged models such as
random waypoint or reference point group mobility. We
believe it is time to federate mobility models under a
common formalism that allows specifying, in a simple and
common fashion, a broad range of mobility models. We propose
Ghost, a meta-modeling approach to design mobility
models. The core of Ghost is composed of (i) atomic
units governing mobility namely behavioral rules, (ii)
an activity-task formalism, and (iii) a fluid
approach. Ghost enables also to calibrate and validate
models with empirical measurements in order to reproduce the
mobility characteristics observed in reality. These
approaches and functionalities lead Ghost to a higher
complexity than classical mobility simulators; but it also
lead to the generation of more realistic traces. Ghost is
also interactive. It is associated with a tool through which
users can define scenarios using a high-level language and
interact with on-going simulations. Ghost can also be bound
to a network simulator to run joint simulations. We
illustrate the power of Ghost by investigating its ability
to easily represent existing mobility models but also new
pedestrians models of indoor (corridor and storey building)
and outdoor mobility (campus).
Dr Franck Legendre is currently
a postdoctoral fellow at the Networks and Performances
Analysis group of the LIP6 laboratory, University
Pierre et Marie Curie~-- Paris VI. He received a Computer
Science Ph.D. from University of Paris VI in 2006, M.Sc.
degrees in Telecommunications Engineering from Institut
National des Telecommunications (INT), Evry,
France, and in Computer Networks from University of
Paris VI in 2002. His research interests focuses on mobility
models and routing considerations for the support of
self-organizing network composition.