FansyRoute: adaptive fan-out for variably intermittent challenged networks

  • Authors:
  • Stephen Dabideen;Ram Ramanathan

  • Affiliations:
  • Raytheon BBN Technologies, Cambridge, MA;Raytheon BBN Technologies, Cambridge, MA

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGMOBILE Mobile Computing and Communications Review
  • Year:
  • 2014

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Abstract

We consider the problem of routing in a highly and variably intermittent wireless network to support delay-intolerant as well as delay tolerant applications. Specifically, the links in such a network are too volatile to maintain a consistent topology, rendering most MANET protocols ineffective. At the same time, store-andforward (DTN) techniques are not an option due to the need for ndelay intolerance, and may be unnecessary due to the likely availability of contemporaneous, albeit rapidly changing, paths.We present a novel routing mechanism called FansyRoute, aimed at this challenged region between MANETs and DTNs. Fansy- Route adaptively adjusts the number of replications (fan-out) on a per-node basis, taking into account the level of intermittency along the path to the destination and a user-specified tradeoff between delivery expectation and the cost of replication. We study the performance of two FansyRoute schemes on a prime example of such variably intermittently connected networks, namely asynchronously duty-cycled sensor networks. Using ns-3, we compare FansyRoute to OLSR, AODV and Flooding. The results show that in an intermittent network, FansyRoute can deliver 50% more packets than the single path protocols, with less than 5% of the replication incurred by flooding. FansyRoute replicates only when needed and the replication is restricted to the challenged regions of the network.