Kinematic Constraints and ns-3 Mobility Models: the AUV Issue

Recently there has been a renewed interest in ns-3 as a tool for Underwater Acoustic communications, with the integration of World Ocean Simulation System (WOSS, [4, 6]) into ns-3. However, the current implementation of ns-3 does not provide specific models suitable for AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles) mobility. An old proposal is available, made by Andrea Sacco during his Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2010 project. However, the code has never been integrated into ns-3. In order to simulate the communications of AUVs, it is mandatory to rely also on simple and effective mobility systems, where the kinematic constraints of the node are taken into account. The requirements of a mobility model for AUVs is to be able to take into account the kinematic model of the real device and to set up a feasible path between two (or more) points. This paper presents a new extensible architecture based on kinematic models, which greatly simplifies the simulation complexity.