Title: Exploiting the influence of infostation system on delay-tolerant networks

Authors: Dongyang Wang; Muqing Wu; Bo Lv; Tianze Li

Addresses: Department of Communication and Information Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China ' Department of Communication and Information Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China ' Department of Communication and Information Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China ' Department of Communication and Information Engineering, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China

Abstract: Heterogeneous delay-tolerant network (DTN) is a trend in the future. This paper investigates the heterogeneity of DTNs by assuming that among the regular DTN nodes some infostations are equipped with large-capacity buffer and connected by high-speed links to form an infostation system. Theoretical models are developed to derive the closed-form formulas of performance improvement when the infostations are introduced. An infostation-based message forwarding (MF) and buffer management mechanism is proposed to reduce the end-to-end delay; following by an infostation-based copy control mechanism to further take advantage of the system by increasing the buffer usage. Both numerical and simulation results are presented to exploit the influence of infostations on the MF strategies; revealing that the degree of routing protocols' dependence on infostation system varies owing to their diverse characteristics. The limitations of infostation system are also discussed under different scenarios.

Keywords: infostation systems; routing protocols; DTNs; delay-tolerant networks; delay tolerance; message forwarding; buffer management; end-to-end delay; copy control; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSNET.2017.081324

International Journal of Sensor Networks, 2017 Vol.23 No.2, pp.87 - 99

Received: 12 Oct 2014
Accepted: 25 Mar 2015
Published online: 05 Jan 2017 *

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