3R: Fine-grained encounter-based routing in Delay Tolerant Networks

In this paper¹, we first characterize the fine-grained encounter pattern among mobile users found in a large-scale Bluetooth trace collected by 123 participants at University of Illinois campus from March to August 2010. Our characterization results show that the fine-grained encounter pattern is regular and predictable. We then design 3R routing protocol, which leverages the regularity of fine-grained encounter pattern among mobile nodes to maximize message delivery probability while preserving message delivery deadline. We evaluate and compare 3R with Prophet and Epidemic routing protocols over the collected trace. Evaluation results show that 3R outperforms other alternatives considerably by improving message delivery while reducing message overhead.