Data-driven Human Mobility Modeling: A Survey and Engineering Guidance for Mobile Networking

Over the last decades, modeling of user mobility has become increasingly important in mobile networking research and development. This has led to the adoption of modeling techniques from other disciplines such as kinetic theory or urban planning. Yet these techniques generate movement behavior that is often perceived as not "realistic" for humans or provides only a macroscopic view on mobility. More recent approaches infer mobility models from real traces provided by positioning technologies or by the marks the mobile users leave in the wireless network. However, there is no common framework for assessing and comparing mobility models. In an attempt to provide a solid foundation for realistic mobility modeling in mobile networking research, we take an engineering approach and thoroughly discuss the required steps of model creation and validation. In this context, we survey how and to what extent existing mobility modeling approaches implement the proposed steps. This also summarizes helpful information for readers who do not want to develop a new model, but rather intend to choose among existing ones.