A Delay-Tolerant Network for Antarctica

Abstract

Antarctica is the land of science. Every year, many studies are carried out in diverse disciplines. Some of these studies collect relevant data for their research with sensors. However, Antarctica's lack of telecommunication technologies hardens the possibility of automatizing this data collection. In most cases, the collection is done manually, limiting research projects' time and space scopes. Over the last years, some alternatives have been studied to deploy remote wireless sensor networks in Antarctica. Near-Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS) communications are an example of these alternatives. However, NVIS presents problems that cannot guarantee persistent end-to-end connectivity. For this reason, this article assesses adapting a delay-tolerant network protocol, the Bundle Protocol, to deliver sensor data reliably through an NVIS network. The scenario is developed and tested in the Riverbed Modeler simulator, and performance is evaluated through a trustworthiness model. A practical testbed is also presented.