Message-driven based energy-efficient routing in heterogeneous delay-tolerant networks

Abstract

Delay-Tolerant Network (DTN) nodes are mostly energy-limited devices that run on battery power. DTN routing strategies on such resource-constrained nodes therefore need to be energy efficient. Contemporary routing protocols such as Two-Hop Routing (2HR) and Epidemic Routing (ER) due to their conservative nature, use same forwarding strategy for all types of messages irrespective of their lifetime and delivery probability requirements. This inherently impacts the energy consumption via unwanted forwards. We propose a message-driven based algorithm add-on to the existing routing protocols, that enables intelligent forwards based on individual message lifetime and delivery requirements, thereby improving energy efficiency. Further we analytically model the performance of these protocols in a realistic DTN setting that comprises of nodes with different transmission radii. The results show that the routing protocols with the proposed energy-efficient add-on improves the energy efficiency up to 60% and 75% for the respective 2HR and ER protocols. The analysis is validated by extensive simulation results.