title: Transportation dynamics on networks of mobile agents.
abstract: Most existing works on transportation dynamics focus on networks of a fixed structure, but networks whose nodes are mobile have become widespread, such as cell-phone networks. We introduce a model to explore the basic physics of transportation on mobile networks. Of particular interest is the dependence of the throughput on the speed of agent movement and the communication range. Our computations reveal a hierarchical dependence for the former, while an algebraic power law is found between the throughput and the communication range with the exponent determined by the speed. We develop a physical theory based on the Fokker-Planck equation to explain these phenomena. Our findings provide insights into complex transportation dynamics arising commonly in natural and engineering systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
authors.forename: Han-Xin
authors.initials: HX
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Wen-Xu
authors.initials: WX
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yan-Bo
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Ying-Cheng
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Bing-Hong
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Wang