Opportunistic Networks: Protocols, Applications & Simulation Trends

Abstract

Opportunistic Network (OppNet) is the next step in the Mobile Ad hoc Networks family with tremendous and updated features that make it second to none in the domain of Network Technology. The main advantage of OppNet is its capability of storing messages to be communicated at intermediate nodes up to the moment of successful communication without any time limit. This quality of OppNet makes it unique among other Network Techniques. From the past few years, it has attracted a huge number of researchers to get involve and innovate it further. it has various applications in real life ranging from smart city to Inter-Planetary Communication. itt has a large number of routing protocols developed by researchers’ time-to-time as their research contribution towards shaping OppNet better than its current versions. Many such attempts have been proved as benchmarks globally. Due to this huge popularity and research scope, young researchers are also getting attracted to OppNet, but, there is no such platform that delivers a basic somehow of OppNet to date. To partially fulfill this space, This paper is intended to familiarize basic knowledge of OppNet covering its introduction, applications, routing protocols, Challenges, and future aspects. It is believed that this paper will be beneficial to the novice researchers to gain basic knowledge of OppNet.