Swarm-based Intelligent Routing (SIR) - a new approach for efficient routing in content centric delay tolerant networks

This paper introduces Swarm-based Intelligent Routing (SIR), a swarm intelligence based approach used for routing content in content centric Pocket Switched Networks. We first formalize the notion of optimal path in DTN, then introduce a swarm intelligence based routing protocol adapted to content centric DTN that use a publish/subscribe communication paradigm. The protocol works in a fully decentralized way in which nodes do not have any knowledge about the global topology. Nodes, via opportunistic contacts, update utility functions which synthesizes their spatio-temporal proximity from the content subscribers. This individual behavior applied by each node leads to the collective formation of gradient fields between content subscribers and content providers. Therefore, content routing simply sums up to follow the steepest slope along these gradient fields to reach subscribers who are located at the minima of the field. Via real traces analysis and simulation, we demonstrate the existence and relevance of such gradient field and show routing performance improvements when compared to classical routing protocols previously defined for information routing in DTN

Pervasive intelligent routing in content centric delay tolerant networks

This paper introduces a Swarm-Intelligence based Routing protocol (SIR) that aims to efficiently route information in content centric Delay Tolerant Networks (CCDTN) also dubbed pocket switched networks. First, this paper formalizes the notion of optimal path in CCDTN and introduces an original and efficient algorithm to process these paths in dynamic graphs. The properties and some invariant features of these optimal paths are analyzed and derived from several real traces. Then, this paper shows how optimal path in CCDTN can be found and used from a fully distributed swarm-intelligence based approach of which the global intelligent behavior (i.e. shortest path discovery and use) emerges from simple peer to peer interactions applied during opportunistic contacts. This leads to the definition of the SIR routing protocol of which the consistency, efficiency and performances are demonstrated from intensive representative simulations

The Quest for a Killer App for Opportunistic and Delay Tolerant Networks (Invited Paper)

Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) has attracted a lot of attention from the research community in recent years. Much work have been done regarding network architectures and algorithms for routing and forwarding in such networks. At the same time as many show enthusiasm for this exciting new research area there are also many sceptics, who question the usefulness of research in this area. In the past, we have seen other research areas become over-hyped and later die out as there was no killer app for them that made them useful in real scenarios. Real deployments of DTN systems have so far mostly been limited to a few niche scenarios, where they have been done as proof-of-concept field tests in research projects. In this paper, we embark upon a quest to find out what characterizes a potential killer applications for DTNs. Are there applications and situations where DTNs provide services that could not be achieved otherwise, or have potential to do it in a better way than other techniques? Further, we highlight some of the main challenges that needs to be solved to realize these applications and make DTNs a part of the mainstream network landscape

Mobility entropy and message routing in community-structured delay tolerant networks

Many message routing schemes have been proposed in the context of delay tolerant networks (DTN) and intermittently connected mobile networks (ICMN). Those routing schemes are tested on specific environments that involve particular mobility complexity whether they are random-based or soci-ologically organized. We, in this paper, propose community structured environment (CSE) and mobility entropy to dis-cuss the effect of node mobility complexity on message rout-ing performance. We also propose potential-based entropy adaptive routing (PEAR) that adaptively carries messages over the change of mobility entropy. According to our simu-lation, PEAR has achieved high delivery rate on wide range of mobility entropy, while link-state routing has worked well only at small entropy scenarios and controlled replication-based routing only at large entropy environments

Research on Wireless Multi-hop Networks: Current State and Challenges

Wireless multi-hop networks, in various forms and under various names, are being increasingly used in military and civilian applications. Studying connectivity and capacity of these networks is an important problem. The scaling behavior of connectivity and capacity when the network becomes sufficiently large is of particular interest. In this position paper, we briefly overview recent development and discuss research challenges and opportunities in the area, with a focus on the network connectivity.Comment: invited position paper to International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications, Hawaii, USA, 201

Analyzing temporal scale behaviour of connectivity properties of node encounters

Nowadays the growing popularity of wireless networks, combined with a wide availability of personal wireless devices, make the role of human mobility modeling more prominent in wireless networks, particularly in infrastructure-less networks such as Delay Tolerant Networks and Opportunistic Networks. The knowledge about encounters’ patterns among mobile nodes will be helpful for understanding the role and potential of mobile devices as relaying nodes. Data about the usage of Wi-Fi networks can be exploited to analyze the patterns of encounters between pairs of mobile devices and then be extrapolated for other contexts. Since human mobility occurs in different spatial and temporal scales, the role of scale in mobility modeling is crucial. Although spatial properties of mobility have been studied in different scales, by our knowledge there is no fundamental perspective about human mobility properties at different temporal scales. In this paper we evaluate the connectivity properties of node encounters at different temporal durations. We observed that connectivity properties of node encounters follow almost the same trends in different time intervals, although slopes and exponential decaying rates may be different. Our observations illustrate that networks formed from encounters of nodes extracted from Wi-Fi traces do not exhibit a scale free behaviour.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologi

Information Propagation Speed in Mobile and Delay Tolerant Networks

The goal of this paper is to increase our understanding of the fundamental performance limits of mobile and Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs), where end-to-end multi-hop paths may not exist and communication routes may only be available through time and mobility. We use analytical tools to derive generic theoretical upper bounds for the information propagation speed in large scale mobile and intermittently connected networks. In other words, we upper-bound the optimal performance, in terms of delay, that can be achieved using any routing algorithm. We then show how our analysis can be applied to specific mobility and graph models to obtain specific analytical estimates. In particular, in two-dimensional networks, when nodes move at a maximum speed $v$ and their density $\nu$ is small (the network is sparse and surely disconnected), we prove that the information propagation speed is upper bounded by ($1+O(\nu^2))v$ in the random way-point model, while it is upper bounded by $O(\sqrt{\nu v} v)$ for other mobility models (random walk, Brownian motion). We also present simulations that confirm the validity of the bounds in these scenarios. Finally, we generalize our results to one-dimensional and three-dimensional networks