We consider a dynamic vehicle routing problem in wireless networks where
messages arriving randomly in time and space are collected by a mobile receiver
(vehicle or a collector). The collector is responsible for receiving these
messages via wireless communication by dynamically adjusting its position in
the network. Our goal is to utilize a combination of wireless transmission and
controlled mobility to improve the delay performance in such networks. We show
that the necessary and sufficient condition for the stability of such a system
(in the bounded average number of messages sense) is given by {\rho}<1 where
{\rho} is the average system load. We derive fundamental lower bounds for the
delay in the system and develop policies that are stable for all loads {\rho}<1
and that have asymptotically optimal delay scaling. Furthermore, we extend our
analysis to the case of multiple collectors in the network. We show that the
combination of mobility and wireless transmission results in a delay scaling of
{\Theta}(1/(1- {\rho})) with the system load {\rho} that is a factor of
{\Theta}(1/(1- {\rho})) smaller than the delay scaling in the corresponding
system where the collector visits each message location.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure