On the applicability of Random mobility models for swarm robot movements

Random mobility models have been traditionally used to represent cellular and ad hoc movement patterns for devices like cell phones, PDAs and laptops. These models are critical for network traffic and protocol analysis. As robotics move to a paradigm where wireless network protocols are being utilized, it is unclear whether the same mobility models are applicable for modeling these wireless network protocols. This paper examines the similarity and differences between the traditional random mobility models and the mobility patterns exhibited by a team of randomly moving robots. Though the movements are driven by the same random functions, the robots need to detect and avoid collisions. Results obtained over different scenarios help establish a better understanding of how to develop mobility models representative of robot movements.