Concrete Synthetic Modeling of Vehicular Networks as Random Geometric Graphs

Random graphs are often used to model vehicular networks. However, their applicability has been limited because it is difficult to express and instantiate parameters of graph models of vehicular networks using real-life data. In this paper, we consider using random geometric graphs to model vehicular networks where vehicle movements are constrained to a road system. We show that vehicles form a random geometric graph with edge probability p that can be expressed as a closed-form expression or as an algorithmically computable expression with parameters that are known or easily measurable in real life. This enables one to answer essential questions, such as questions related to routing and placement of mobile nodes required to detect malicious parties in vehicular communications, as a function of practically measurable and computable parameters.