Title:
Capacity Enhancement Using Throw-Boxes in Mobile Delay Tolerant Networks

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Zhao, Wenrui
Chen, Yang
Ammar, Mostafa H.
Corner, Mark D.
Levine, Brian
Zegura, Ellen W.
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Abstract
Delay tolerant networks (DTNs) are a class of emerging networks that are subject to frequent and long-duration partitions. Due to intermittent connectivity, DTNs might be significantly limited in supporting application needs, for example, leading to low throughput or high delay. To address this problem, we propose the use of throw-boxes to improve data delivery performance. Throw-boxes are small, inexpensive devices equipped with wireless interfaces and deployed to relay data between mobile nodes. Being small and inexpensive, throwboxes represent a flexible and cost-effective approach to enhance network capacity. In this paper, we systematically study two inter-related issues, namely deployment and routing, in using throw-boxes for throughput enhancement. Specifically, we develop algorithms for throw-box deployment and data forwarding under various routing strategies, including single path, multi-path and epidemic routing. Using extensive ns simulations, we evaluate the utility of throw-boxes and the impact of various routing and deployment strategies on network performance. Our objective is to guide the design and operations of throw-box-enhanced DTNs. We find that throw-boxes are very effective in improving both data delivery ratio and delay, especially for multi-path routing and environments with regular node movement.
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2006
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