Experiences using a miniature vehicular network testbed

Abstract

Despite increasingly realistic vehicular network simulations, the effects of real-world mobility on network and application performance in vehicular networks are still not well understood. We present Pharos, a small-scale vehicular network testbed with "push-button" experiment repeatability and develop a framework for analyzing network performance of vehicular networks simultaneously in simulation and in the real world. We empirically study the differences between real-world and simulated connectivity. Early experiment results using our vehicular testbed show significant differences between simulated and actual movements resulting in differences in wireless connectivity. Because of this, we implement a trace mobility model that allows the OMNeT++ simulator replay actual GPS-based movement traces collected by the testbed and scale to larger networks.