A Novel Alternative to Bundle Protocol for Handling Data Transmission Across Disruption-Tolerant Networks

Abstract

AbstractCommunication networks are prone to disruption due to inherent uncertainties such as environmental conditions, system outages, and other factors. However, current communication protocols for state-of-the-art disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs) designed to withstand such conditions are not yet optimized for high performance over long distances, such as those encountered in deep space. Current DTN communication protocols have been documented in the literature as inherently assuming relatively low levels of signal loss, not accounting for end-to-end error rate, and presuming a lack of performance constraints governing optimal communication function. However, these assumptions and constraints frequently do not hold true outside of theoretical scenarios; therefore, there is a need for an improved communication protocol that has the ability to minimize data loss to tolerable levels over an unstable and error-prone communication link. Furthermore, any novel communication protocol should also be able to optimize transmission time: this is because current communication networks for parts of space prone to signal disruptions, particularly deep space, are fairly slow and have a low data rate, since transmitters have to trade speed for accuracy when transmitting data at a particular power level directly from deep space to Earth. Bundle protocol (BP) is an experimental protocol for handling packet transmission through DTN networks that has a number of vocal proponents in the academic and the aerospace community; however, as noted by authors of the protocol, there are a number of key areas of concern associated with BP approach, including, but not limited to, high vulnerability to denial of service (DoS) attacks and issues efficiently handling congestion and flow control schemes implemented across highly variable delay environments. BP, as a protocol which “sits at the application layer of some number of constituent internets”, also utilizes internet protocols such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and similar alternatives to handle lower-level management of data transfer, and thus inherits the limitations associated with the implementations of such approaches (as well as those that emerge at the interface of protocols at each level), creating further vulnerabilities for potential exploitation by nefarious agents or reductions in system performance due to poor environmental conditions. This work concerns the development of a novel protocol for data transmission across delay/disruption-tolerant networks, which is presented as an alternative to the bundle protocol standard. The alternative proposed herein seeks to address some of the limitations seen in bundle protocol and provide a DTN networking option with wider usability, better reliability, and improved immunity to DoS attacks. In particular, the efficacy of the proposed approach, in terms of maintaining both data integrity and transmission speed, was evaluated via simulation against BP and a set of other alternative DTN data handling methodologies from the literature and demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in performance compared to BP and other canonical communication protocols. The result is presented herein in terms of its ramifications for future DTN implementations.KeywordsCommunicationsNetworkSignal optimizationBundle protocolDisruption tolerant networkingDTN