Replication Control for Ensuring Reliability of Convergecast Message Delivery in Infrastructure-Aided DTNs

Hybrid networks constructed from cellular networks and delay- and disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs) are able to provide reliable communications to mobile nodes in base-station-starved areas regardless of node mobility or density. However, no routing scheme in DTNs has considered the adaptation to other networks, i.e., cellular networks. Thus, the reliability of message delivery is dependent on the position relationship between source nodes and base stations. In this paper, we propose an advanced routing scheme that controls the maximum number of replicas according to the distance between the source node and the nearest base station. Furthermore, we show how to decide the maximum number of replica messages for the distance from the base stations by analyzing the message delivery reliability of an existing DTN routing scheme. Additionally, we execute extensive computer simulations to evaluate the performance of our proposed routing scheme. Our results show that our proposed routing scheme keeps the required reliability regardless of the source node location.