Towards a study of mobility models impact on VANET connectivity metrics

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are a subclass of mobile ad hoc networks that have emerged recently as a platform to support intelligent inter-vehicle communication and to improve active safety, traffic management, and performance. The knowledge of the topological characteristics of the underlying network is an important factor we should take care of because it can greatly affect the design and development of efficient VANET protocols. As a matter of fact it influences the connectivity of vehicular networks. In this paper, we present an analysis of the influence of mobility models on the topological characteristics of a VANET network by using different connectivity metrics such as lobby index, betweenness centrality and local clustering coefficient. Such parameters could be used for example in choosing the next hop in dissemination protocols.