Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2021) | Viewed by 29935

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral No 12, 6000-084 Castelo Branco, Portugal
2. Instituto de Telecomunicações, Rua Marquês d’Ávila e Bolama, 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Interests: mobility support for wireless sensor networks; Internet of Things; smart cities; smart farming
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Delay- and disruption-tolerant networking (DTN) has been an active research area due to its importance and wide range of countless applications in challenged scenarios and environments. DTNs consist of only mobile nodes, or both fixed nodes and mobile nodes moving around and occasionally coming into each other's proximity. Communication opportunities are usually short and sporadic, thereby making node-to-node communications extremely challenging and resulting in a very slow data dissemination process. Potential DTN applications include but are not limited to interplanetary networks, vehicular networks, networks for emergency response, disaster recovery, military operations, environmental sensing, tracking and monitoring applications, and communications in remote and rural areas and developing countries.

This Special Issue aims at bringing together researchers, academicians, scientists, and students to exchange their ideas, experiences, and latest research results on DTNs and their applications.

The topics of this Special Issue include but are not limited to the following:

  • Technologies and standards
  • Architectures, protocols, and algorithms
  • Data management and analytics
  • Network performance
  • Modeling and simulation
  • Prototypes, testbeds, and case studies
  • Applications
  • Security, privacy, and trust
  • Integration with infrastructure-based networks

Prof. Dr. Vasco N.G.J. Soares
Prof. Dr. Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues
Prof. Dr. João M. L. P. Caldeira
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Delay-tolerant networks
  • Disruption-tolerant networks (DTN)
  • Opportunistic networks
  • Network architecture
  • Protocols
  • Algorithms
  • Prototype
  • Testbed
  • Simulation
  • Modeling
  • Application scenarios
  • Applications

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 4190 KiB  
Article
An Efficient Routing Protocol with Overload Control for Group Mobility in Delay-Tolerant Networking
by Min Wook Kang and Yun Won Chung
Electronics 2021, 10(4), 521; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics10040521 - 23 Feb 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1684
Abstract
In delay-tolerant networking (DTN), messages are delivered to destination nodes by using opportunistic contacts between contact nodes, even if stable routing paths from source nodes to destination nodes do not exist. In some DTN network environments, such as military networks, nodes movement follows [...] Read more.
In delay-tolerant networking (DTN), messages are delivered to destination nodes by using opportunistic contacts between contact nodes, even if stable routing paths from source nodes to destination nodes do not exist. In some DTN network environments, such as military networks, nodes movement follows a group movement model, and an efficient DTN routing protocol is required to use the characteristics of group mobility. In this paper, we consider a network environment, where both intra- and intergroup routing are carried out by using DTN protocols. Then, we propose an efficient routing protocol with overload control for group mobility, where delivery predictability for group mobility is defined and proactive overload control is applied. Performance evaluation results show that the proposed protocol had better delivery ratios and overhead ratios than compared protocols, although the delivery latency was increased. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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27 pages, 4801 KiB  
Article
An Adaptive Delay-Tolerant Routing Algorithm for Data Transmission in Opportunistic Social Networks
by Shupei Chen, Zhigang Chen, Jia Wu and Kanghuai Liu
Electronics 2020, 9(11), 1915; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics9111915 - 13 Nov 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1625
Abstract
In opportunistic networks, the requirement of QoS (quality of service) poses several major challenges to wireless mobile devices with limited cache and energy. This implies that energy and cache space are two significant cornerstones for the structure of a routing algorithm. However, most [...] Read more.
In opportunistic networks, the requirement of QoS (quality of service) poses several major challenges to wireless mobile devices with limited cache and energy. This implies that energy and cache space are two significant cornerstones for the structure of a routing algorithm. However, most routing algorithms tackle the issue of limited network resources from the perspective of a deterministic approach, which lacks an adaptive data transmission mechanism. Meanwhile, these methods show a relatively low scalability because they are probably built up based on some special scenarios rather than general ones. To alleviate the problems, this paper proposes an adaptive delay-tolerant routing algorithm (DTCM) utilizing curve-trapezoid Mamdani fuzzy inference system (CMFI) for opportunistic social networks. DTCM evaluates both the remaining energy level and the remaining cache level of relay nodes (two-factor) in opportunistic networks and makes reasonable decisions on data transmission through CMFI. Different from the traditional fuzzy inference system, CMFI determines three levels of membership functions through the trichotomy law and evaluates the fuzzy mapping from two-factor fuzzy input to data transmission by curve-trapezoid membership functions. Our experimental results show that within the error interval of 0.05~0.1, DTCM improves delivery ratio by about 20% and decreases end-to-end delay by approximate 25% as compared with Epidemic, and the network overhead from DTCM is in the middle horizon. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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14 pages, 3044 KiB  
Article
An Efficient Delay Tolerant Networks Routing Protocol for Information-Centric Networking
by Min Wook Kang, Dong Yeong Seo and Yun Won Chung
Electronics 2020, 9(5), 839; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics9050839 - 19 May 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2317
Abstract
Delay tolerant networks (DTN) is a good candidate for delivering information-centric networking (ICN) messages in fragmented networks due to disaster. In order to efficiently deliver ICN messages in DTN, the characteristics of multiple requester nodes for the same content and multiple provider nodes [...] Read more.
Delay tolerant networks (DTN) is a good candidate for delivering information-centric networking (ICN) messages in fragmented networks due to disaster. In order to efficiently deliver ICN messages in DTN, the characteristics of multiple requester nodes for the same content and multiple provider nodes for the same request should be used efficiently. In this paper, we propose an efficient DTN routing protocol for ICN. In the proposed protocol, requester information for request packet, which is called an Interest in ICN, is shared by exchanging status table with requested Data ID, requester ID, and satisfaction flag, where satisfaction flag is defined to show the delivery status of Data, so that unnecessary forwarding of Data is avoided. Data is forwarded to a more probable node by comparing average delivery predictability to a set of requesters. Performance of the proposed protocol was evaluated using simulation from the aspect of Data delivery probability and Data overhead, for varying buffer sizes, number of relay nodes, and time-to-live (TTL) of Data. The results show that the proposed protocol has better Data delivery probability, compared to content distribution and retrieval framework in disaster networks for public protection (CIDOR) and opportunistic forwarding (OF) protocols, although there is a tradeoff from the aspect of Data overhead for varying buffer sizes and number of relay nodes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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15 pages, 23881 KiB  
Article
Congestion-Aware Geocast Routing in Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks
by Henrique Nascimento, Paulo Rogério Pereira and Naercio Magaia
Electronics 2020, 9(3), 477; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics9030477 - 13 Mar 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2526
Abstract
Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) are networks of vehicles that communicate wirelessly, where there are no permanent end-to-end connections. VDTNs have a highly variable topology, with frequent partitions, and possibly low node density. Thus, delay-tolerant routing adopts a store-carry-and-forward message transfer paradigm, where messages [...] Read more.
Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) are networks of vehicles that communicate wirelessly, where there are no permanent end-to-end connections. VDTNs have a highly variable topology, with frequent partitions, and possibly low node density. Thus, delay-tolerant routing adopts a store-carry-and-forward message transfer paradigm, where messages have a useful Time-To-Live (TTL) and are stored until a good contact opportunity arises. Multiple message replicas can be generated to improve delivery probability at the cost of increasing network congestion. In this paper, we propose the V-GRADIENT geocast routing protocol that monitors node density, buffer occupancy, and interest in geocast groups, to adapt the forwarding techniques used dynamically, to disseminate messages within the geographic region of interest. Simulation results show that the V-GRADIENT is capable of controlling network congestion and efficiently delivering messages resulting in better delivery ratios, lower latencies, and a small increase in overhead when compared with existing protocols. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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13 pages, 4059 KiB  
Article
An Improved Hybrid Routing Protocol Combining MANET and DTN
by Min Wook Kang and Yun Won Chung
Electronics 2020, 9(3), 439; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics9030439 - 05 Mar 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4940
Abstract
Hybrid protocols combining a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) and a delay tolerant network (DTN) have recently been proposed. In these works, a whole network is fragmented, and MANET is generally used for intra-fragment communication, while DTN is used for inter-fragment communication. In [...] Read more.
Hybrid protocols combining a mobile ad hoc network (MANET) and a delay tolerant network (DTN) have recently been proposed. In these works, a whole network is fragmented, and MANET is generally used for intra-fragment communication, while DTN is used for inter-fragment communication. In this paper, an improved hybrid routing protocol was proposed, wherein virtual source nodes are selected based on the delivery predictability to the destination node if routing path to the destination node is not successfully established using MANET protocol. Then, messages are delivered to the destination node from the original source node and selected virtual source nodes. Performance evaluation results show that the proposed protocol with appropriate selection of delivery predictability threshold values has a better delivery ratio than conventional protocol, at the expense of overhead ratio in the considered parameter setting. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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21 pages, 4076 KiB  
Article
Mobile P2P-Based Skyline Query Processing over Delay-Tolerant Networks
by Kyoungsoo Bok, Sunyong Park, Jongtae Lim and Jaesoo Yoo
Electronics 2019, 8(11), 1276; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics8111276 - 02 Nov 2019
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1843
Abstract
Skyline query-processing techniques considering various properties in peer to peer (P2P)-based services have become a recent topic of research. In this paper, we propose a new skyline query-processing scheme to improve the query-processing performance and accuracy in a mobile P2P service over delay-tolerant [...] Read more.
Skyline query-processing techniques considering various properties in peer to peer (P2P)-based services have become a recent topic of research. In this paper, we propose a new skyline query-processing scheme to improve the query-processing performance and accuracy in a mobile P2P service over delay-tolerant networks. The proposed scheme collects data on the query object from neighboring nodes and establishes a local skyline through static properties to reduce query-processing costs. To improve the query accuracy in a non-uniform distribution environment, the query-dissemination range is expanded by enforcing a query-dissemination range expansion. The performance evaluation conducted to verify the superiority of the proposed scheme demonstrates that it has a better performance compared to the existing schemes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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14 pages, 2233 KiB  
Article
A Novel Data Forwarding Strategy for a Drone Delay Tolerant Network with Range Extension
by Saeid Iranmanesh and Raad Raad
Electronics 2019, 8(6), 659; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics8060659 - 11 Jun 2019
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3844
Abstract
Amazon, Uber Eats, and United Parcel Service (UPS) are planning to launch drone delivery services in the near future. Indeed, recently, Google has received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval for its Wings delivery platform. Amazon claims that a drone logistics network is more [...] Read more.
Amazon, Uber Eats, and United Parcel Service (UPS) are planning to launch drone delivery services in the near future. Indeed, recently, Google has received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval for its Wings delivery platform. Amazon claims that a drone logistics network is more cost-efficient and quicker than a motor vehicle delivery network. In this paper, we propose a data delivery service by the drone network in addition to parcel delivery. We propose Heuristic Flight Path Planning (HFPP) that plans a drone’s flight path based on parcel delivery destination as well as data delivery destinations (waypoints). We further extend the solution to include drone charging stations for range extension. Our simulation studies show that our proposed method has delivered the data and consignments such that HFPP delivers up to 33% more data packets compared with Encounter-Based Routing (EBR), Epidemic, and a similar path planning method. Also, HFPP reduces the data delivery delays by up to 72% while the overhead ratio is low. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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Review

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11 pages, 607 KiB  
Review
Review on Free-Space Optical Communications for Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networks
by Mafalda Goncalves Teixeira, Julio Ramirez Molina and Vasco N. G. J. Soares
Electronics 2021, 10(13), 1607; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics10131607 - 05 Jul 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3761
Abstract
The increase of data-rates that are provided by free-space optical (FSO) communications is essential in our data-driven society. When used in satellite and interplanetary networks, these optical links can ensure fast connections, yet they are susceptible to atmospheric disruptions and long orbital delays. [...] Read more.
The increase of data-rates that are provided by free-space optical (FSO) communications is essential in our data-driven society. When used in satellite and interplanetary networks, these optical links can ensure fast connections, yet they are susceptible to atmospheric disruptions and long orbital delays. The Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) architecture ensures a reliable connection between two end nodes, without the need for a direct connection. This can be an asset when used with FSO links, providing protocols that can handle the intermittent nature of the connection. This paper provides a review on the theoretical and state-of-the-art studies on FSO and DTN. The aim of this review is to provide motivation for the research of an optical wireless satellite network, with focus on the use of the Licklider Transmission Protocol. The assessment presented establishes the viability of these networks, providing many examples to rely on, and summarizing the most recent stage of the development of the technologies addressed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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32 pages, 1710 KiB  
Review
Network Management and Monitoring Solutions for Vehicular Networks: A Survey
by João A. F. F. Dias, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues, Vasco N. G. J. Soares, João M. L. P. Caldeira, Valery Korotaev and Mario L. Proença
Electronics 2020, 9(5), 853; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/electronics9050853 - 21 May 2020
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 5012
Abstract
Vehicular networks are emerging as a promising technology that enables reliable and low-cost solutions for intelligent transport systems (ITSs), mainly due to their enormous potential to be considered for multiple purposes and scenarios. These networks are characterized by unique and challenging features such [...] Read more.
Vehicular networks are emerging as a promising technology that enables reliable and low-cost solutions for intelligent transport systems (ITSs), mainly due to their enormous potential to be considered for multiple purposes and scenarios. These networks are characterized by unique and challenging features such as packet fragmentation, low node density, short contact duration, and network disruption. These features may result in the absence of a path between the source and destination nodes, which is one of the most challenging issues faced by this type of network. To overcome some of these problems, it is necessary to provide vehicular networks with sophisticated tools or methodologies to implement monitoring and management operations. However, designing efficient solutions for this type of network is not an easy task due to its particular characteristics. This paper elaborates on a comprehensive survey focusing on promising proposals to deal with monitoring and management functionalities in vehicular networks. This work aims not only to present the state of the art on monitoring and management solutions but also to analyze their benefits and drawbacks, identify open issues, and provide guidelines for further contributions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Delay Tolerant Networks and Applications)
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