The Tempo-Spatial Information Dissemination Properties of Mobile Opportunistic Networks with Levy Mobility

Abstract

Mobile opportunistic networks make use of a new networking paradigm that takes advantage of node mobility to distribute information. Studying their inherent properties of information dissemination can provide a straightforward explanation on the potentials of mobile opportunistic networks to support emerging applications such as mobile commerce, emergency services, and so on. In this paper, we investigate the inherent properties of information dissemination using the Lévy mobility model to characterize the movement pattern of the nodes. Because Lévy mobility can closely mimic human walk, the analysis model we adopt is practical. Our analyses are taken from the perspectives of small- and large-scales. From the perspective of small-scale, the distribution of the minimum time needed by the information to spread to a given region is investigated, from the perspective of large-scale, the bounds of the probability of the earliest time at which the information arrives in a region that is sufficiently farther away are obtained. We also provide the rate that such probability approaches zero as the distance to the region increases to infinity. Finally, our main results are validated by the numerical simulations.