Routing protocols in delay tolerant networks: Application-oriented survey

Abstract

In today’s world scenario, frequent communications disruption arise in the wireless networks due to various factors such as natural calamity: earthquake, cyclone, thunderstorm, and fierce other climatic condition(s) in inhabited areas. Such frequent disturbances which arise from time to time results in failure of establishment of end-to-end connection path between nodes of a network. This problem spreads light on the immediate requirement of Delay Tolerant Network (DTN). The existing mobile ad hoc routing protocols fail to provide services to a dynamically changing topology which suffers from frequent delays. The paper discusses various routing protocols which provide improved performance and reduced delays over their predecessors. A routing protocol which is able to deliver the data packet in minimum amount of time with high reliability and minimum delay is considered the best. The protocols researched in the current work perform better in sparsely connected, partitioned, and intermittent networks.