An empirical framework for user mobility models: Refining and modeling user registration patterns

In this paper, we examine user registration patterns in empirical WLAN traces, identify elusive patterns that are abused as user movements in constructing empirical mobility models, and analyze them to build up a realistic user mobility model. The examination shows that about 38–90% of transitions are irrelevant to actual user movements. In order to refine the elusive movements, we investigate the geographical relationships among APs and propose a filtering framework for removing them from the trace data. We then analyze the impact of the false-positive movements on an empirical mobility model. The numerical results indicate that the proposed framework improves the fidelity of the empirical mobility model. Finally, we devise an analytical model for characterizing realistic user movements, based on the analysis on the elusive user registration patterns, which emulates elusive user registration patterns and generates true user mobile patterns.