Improving vehicular delay-tolerant network performance with relay nodes

“Copyright © [2009] IEEE. Reprinted from Next Generation Internet Network. NGI '09). ISBN:978-1-4244-4244-7. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.”Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networking (VDTN) is an extension of the Delay-Tolerant Network (DTN) architecture concept to transit networks. VDTN architecture handles non-real time applications, exploiting vehicles to enable connectivity under unreliable scenarios with unstable links and where an end-to-end path may not exist. Intuitively, the use of stationary store-and-forward devices (relay nodes) located at crossroads where vehicles meet them and should improve the message delivery probability. In this paper, we analyze the influence of the number of relay nodes, in urban scenarios with different numbers of vehicles. It was shown that relay nodes significantly improve the message delivery probability on studied DTN routing protocols.Part of this work has been supported by the Instituto de Telecomunicações, Next Generation Networks and Applications Group, Portugal, in the framework of the Project VDTN@Lab, and by the Euro-NF Network of Excellence of Seven Framework Programme of EU

Creation of a vehicular delay-tolerant network prototype

Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Network (VDTN) is a new disruptive network architecture where vehicles act as the communication infrastructure. VDTN follows a layered architecture based on control and data planes separation, and positioning the bundle layer under the network layer. VDTN furnishes low-cost asynchronous communications coping with intermittent and sparse connectivity, variable delays and even no end-to-end connection. This paper presents a VDTN prototype (testbed) proposal, which implements and validates the VDTN layered architecture considering the proposed out-of-band signaling. The main goals of the prototype are emulation, demonstration, performance evaluation, and diagnose of protocol stacks and services, proving the applicability of VDTNs over a wide range of environments.Part of this work has been supported by the Instituto de Telecomunicações, Next Generation Networks and Applications Group (NetGNA), Covilhã Delegation, Portugal in the framework of the VDTN@Lab Project, and by the Euro-NF Network of Excellence from the Seventh Framework Programme of EU

Exploiting node localization for performance improvement of vehicular delay-tolerant networks

“Copyright © [2010] IEEE. Reprinted from IEEE International Conference on Communications (IEEE ICC 2010) - General Symposium on Selected Areas in Communications (ICC'10 SAS).ISSN:1550-3607. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.”Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) are characterized by high node mobility, intermittent connectivity, and short contact durations. Such factors cause incomplete transmissions and the waste of link capacity. To address these issues, this paper explores the use of node localization in VDTNs. The exchange of signaling information related to nodes’ real-time location, current trajectory, velocity, and transmit range allows a Contact Prediction Algorithm to estimate contact durations. This information can be used in conjunction with additional signaling information (e.g. link data rate), to determine the maximum number of bytes that can be transmitted during contact opportunities. A Contact Duration Scheduling Policy can use this information to prevent incomplete transmissions, while increasing the number of successfully relayed bundles and improving data link utilization. Through a simulation study, we investigate the benefits of introducing the concept of node localization, and evaluate the performance of the proposed Contact Prediction Algorithm and Contact Duration Scheduling Policy. We demonstrate the gains introduced by this approach in comparison with an environment where VDTN nodes have no access to localization information.Part of this work has been supported by Instituto de Telecomunicações, Next Generation Networks and Applications Group (NetGNA), Portugal, in the framework of the Project VDTN@Lab, and by the Euro-NF Network of Excellence from the Seventh Framework Programme of EU

Scheduling and drop policies for traffic differentiation on vehicular delay-tolerant networks

“Copyright © [2009] IEEE. Reprinted from 17th International Conference on Software, Telecommunications & Computer Networks, 2009. SoftCOM 2009.ISBN:978-1-4244-4973-6. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.”Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) are a promising technology for vehicular communications, creating application scenarios that enable non-real time services with diverse performance requirements. Because of scarce network resources (e.g. bandwidth and storage capacity) and node’s short contact durations, the underlying VDTN network infrastructure must be capable of prioritizing traffic. This paper investigates several scheduling and drop policies, which can be used to implement traffic differentiation. Priority Greedy, Round Robin, and Time Threshold scheduling polices are proposed. In terms of drop policy, the message with the lowest priority and the lowest remaining time-to-live is discarded first. We evaluate their efficiency and tradeoffs, through simulation. The results presented in this paper can be used as a starting point for further studies in this research field, and give helpful guidelines for future VDTN protocol design.Part of this work has been supported by Instituto de Telecomunicações, Next Generation Networks and Applications Group (NetGNA), Portugal, in the framework of the Project VDTN@Lab, and by the Euro-NF Network of Excellence of the Seventh Framework Programme of EU

Solutions for vehicular communications: a review

Vehicular networks experience a number of unique challenges due to the high mobility of vehicles and highly dynamic network topology, short contact durations, disruption intermittent connectivity, significant loss rates, node density, and frequent network fragmentation. All these issues have a profound impact on routing strategies in these networks. This paper gives an insight about available solutions on related literature for vehicular communications. It overviews and compares the most relevant approaches for data communication in these networks, discussing their influence on routing strategies. It intends to stimulate research and contribute to further advances in this rapidly evolving area where many key open issues that still remain to be addressed are identified.Part of this work has been supported by the Instituto de Telecomunicações, Next Generation Networks and Applications Group (NetGNA), Portugal, in the framework of the Project VDTN@Lab, and by the Euro-NF Network of Excellence of the Seventh Framework Programme of EU, in the framework of the Specific Joint Research Project VDTN

Temporal random walk as a lightweight communication infrastructure for opportunistic networks

This paper explores the idea of sharing a common storage unit (token) as a lightweight communication infrastructure for opportunistic networks. Instead of using contacts as opportunities to transfer messages, we use them to pass the token over time. We implement a Temporal Random Walk (TRW) process to support such evolution. Sending a message is equivalent to copying it in the token and passing the token to a connected node. Eventually the recipient node will get the token and all its addressed messages. We study our approach using both synthetic and real traces. We show that it can be equivalent to common routing strategies in terms of delivery ratio and delay

Traffic differentiation support in vehicular delay-tolerant networks

Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networking (VDTN) is a Delay-Tolerant Network (DTN) based architecture concept for transit networks, where vehicles movement and their bundle relaying service is opportunistically exploited to enable non-real time applications, under environments prone to connectivity disruptions, network partitions and potentially long delays. In VDTNs, network resources may be limited, for instance due to physical constraints of the network nodes. In order to be able to prioritize applications traffic according to its requirements in such constrained scenarios, traffic differentiation mechanisms must be introduced at the VDTN architecture. This work considers a priority classes of service (CoS) model and investigates how different buffer management strategies can be combined with drop and scheduling policies, to provide strict priority based services, or to provide custom allocation of network resources. The efficiency and tradeoffs of these proposals is evaluated through extensive simulation.Part of this work has been supported by Instituto de Telecomunicações, Next Generation Networks and Applications Group (NetGNA), Portugal, in the framework of the Project VDTN@Lab, and by the Euro-NF Network of Excellence of the Seventh Framework Programme of EU

Performance evaluation of a cooperative reputation system for vehicular delay-tolerant networks

In the last decade, both scientific community and automotive industry enabled communications among vehicles in different kinds of scenarios proposing different vehicular architectures. Vehicular delay-tolerant networks (VDTNs) were proposed as a solution to overcome some of the issues found in other vehicular architectures, namely, in dispersed regions and emergency scenarios. Most of these issues arise from the unique characteristics of vehicular networks. Contrary to delay-tolerant networks (DTNs), VDTNs place the bundle layer under the network layer in order to simplify the layered architecture and enable communications in sparse regions characterized by long propagation delays, high error rates, and short contact durations. However, such characteristics turn contacts very important in order to exchange as much information as possible between nodes at every contact opportunity. One way to accomplish this goal is to enforce cooperation between network nodes. To promote cooperation among nodes, it is important that nodes share their own resources to deliver messages from others. This can be a very difficult task, if selfish nodes affect the performance of cooperative nodes. This paper studies the performance of a cooperative reputation system that detects, identify, and avoid communications with selfish nodes. Two scenarios were considered across all the experiments enforcing three different routing protocols (First Contact, Spray and Wait, and GeoSpray). For both scenarios, it was shown that reputation mechanisms that punish aggressively selfish nodes contribute to increase the overall network performance

Performance Assessment of Aggregation and Deaggregation Algorithms in Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks

Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) are a new approach for vehicular communications where vehicles cooperate with each other, acting as the communication infrastructure, to provide low-cost asynchronous opportunistic communications. These communication technologies assume variable delays and bandwidth constraints characterized by a non-transmission control protocol/ internet protocol architecture but interacting with it at the edge of the network. VDTNs are based on the principle of asynchronous communications, bundleoriented communication from the DTN architecture, employing a store-carryand- forward routing paradigm. In this sense, VDTNs should use the tight network resources optimizing each opportunistic contact among nodes. At the ingress edge nodes, incoming IP Packets (datagrams) are assembled into large data packets, called bundles. The bundle aggregation process plays an important role on the performance of VDTN applications. Then, this paper presents three aggregation algorithms based on time, bundle size, and a hybrid solution with combination of both. Furthermore, the following four aggregation schemes with quality of service (QoS) support are proposed: 1) single-class bundle with N = M, 2) composite-class bundle with N = M, 3) single-class bundle with N > M, and 4) composite-class bundle with N > M, where N is the number of classes of incoming packets and M is the number of priorities supported by the VDTN core network. The proposed mechanisms were evaluated through a laboratory testbed, called VDTN@Lab. The adaptive hybrid approach and the composite-class schemes present the best performance for different types of traffic load and best priorities distribution, respectively