WSN12-5: Integrated Scheduling of Application- and Network-Layer Tasks in Delay-Tolerant MANETs

Natural or man-made disasters can partition networks while threatening human lives. Because conventional mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) cannot route messages across partitions, they may not adequately support relief efforts. To forward messages across partitions, delay-tolerant networks (DTNs) exploit in-network storage and mobility. Many previous DTN routing protocols either opportunistically use, but do not modify, nodes´ mobility, or require dedicated mobile gateways. This paper contributes a cross-layer DTN routing approach based on the observation that application-layer orders from a MANET´s leader also control workers´ mobility and ability to forward messages. Our approach attempts to minimize deadline misses and energy consumption by scheduling worker tasks considering both application- and network-layer needs. Simulations demonstrate performance benefits of our approach in a variety of scenarios.