Network Monitoring in Delay Tolerant Network

Abstract: A Disruption Tolerant Network (DTN) is a sparse network where connectivity is regulated by the proximity of mobile nodes. Connections are sporadic and the delivery rate is closely related to node movement. As network resources often are limited in such settings, it is useful to monitor the network in order to make more efficient communication decisions. This study investigates existing routing protocols and monitoring tools for DTN that best cope with the requirements of a tactical military network. A model is proposed to estimate source to destination delay in DTN. This model is evaluated in a Java-based software simulator called The ONE. In order to match the tactical military environment, two scenarios are constructed. The squad scenario simulates the formation movement pattern of several squads and the hierarchical communication scheme that is maintained in a military context. The other scenario simulates a convoy line movement of a military group during transportation. The results of this study show that the proposed mechanism can improve delivery rate and reduce network overhead in settings with strict buffer limitations. The estimation worked best in scenarios that contained some patterns of movement or communication. These patterns are resembled in the model's collected data and the model can provide the user with rough estimates of end-to-end delays in the network. Primary use of this model has been to reduce number of old messages in the network, but other applications like anomaly detection are also discussed in this work.