An efficient message forwarding in delay tolerant networks using power of crowd

Abstract

The wireless ad hoc networks allow portable devices to exchange information by exploiting their locality as well as mobility. However, the information exchange in delay tolerant networks (DTNs) is more challenging due to (unpredictably) long disconnect among the devices. The information exchange complicates further due to human interactions. Nevertheless, we propose that it can be exploited to make routing efficient in DTNs. We classify the devices into two classes based on their social behaviour: (i) Socials that represent the devices that visit each other often, (ii) Vagabonds are devices that seldom visit each other. We observe that, predominantly, the populations consist of Vagabonds that have been ignored in most experimental studies unfortunately. In the present work, we examine the impact of both of the above mentioned groups on message forwarding. We found that the effectiveness of message forwarding, under the circumstances that are common in real life situations, depends upon the density of users rather than their autonomous social behaviour. Our findings have been conformed with simulation experiments.