Counting in Delay-Tolerant Mobile Networks

This research addresses the problem of counting in Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs). The goal is to estimate the total number of nodes in the network with short delay time, high accuracy and small storage overhead. DTNs are occasionally connected networks that may suffer from frequent partitions. While counting in conventional (well-connected) networks has been extensively studied, it remains challenging in DTNs, due to the intermittent network connectivity and heterogeneous nodal mobility. In this paper, we propose a novel scheme that exploits effective nodal contact probability to guide the counting process. Extensive simulations based on real mobility traces are carried out to evaluate the performance of our proposed scheme. The results demonstrate that it is highly efficient and outperforms all existing solutions.