Comparison of UAV-based reconnaissance systems performance using realistic mobility models

The choice of an appropriate mobility model is an important aspect in the simulation of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), which is the main method to evaluate the performance of these systems before real world deployment. In many circumstances related to applications of the considered MANETs, the mobility model has restrictions or constraints that have to be observed, such as the communication link maintenance with a given number of neighbor nodes or area coverage. Despite the great interest in this subject, most of the mobility models currently used to simulate MANET systems presents many simplifications and restrictive assumptions. Depending on the application under concern and its requirements, such simplifications and assumptions may be acceptable, but this is not true for all cases. Considering the specific application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in area reconnaissance, the goal of this paper is to compare the performance of different mobility models applying realistic assumptions about nodes´ mobility, attesting that, different from previous works in this research area state, realistic assumptions may matter and impact the final results, depending on the operation scenario.