Probability-based spray-and-wait protocol with buffer management in Delay Tolerant Networks

Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) are one of the most interesting evolutions of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). DTNs can be characterized by intermittent connectivity, frequent end-to-end path disruption, and topology changes. In these networks, mobile nodes have the ability to communicate with each other, even if a route connecting them does not exist. When considering the routing protocols of DTNs, a forwarding decision and buffer management scheme are both important to improve successful message delivery. Therefore, this paper, proposes an improved spray-and-wait routing protocol based on the delivery probability. Moreover, a buffer management policy is introduced to drop the queued messages with the most replicate copies in the network. Simulation results show that the proposed method provides a better delivery ratio and lower communication overhead, compared to existing schemes.