Backpressure-based Routing and Congestion Control Protocols for Delay Tolerant Networks

In this paper we suggest a novel routing algorithm for Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN). The suggested backpressurealgorithm uses information about queue backlogs in order to make routing decisions on a per-packet basis without the notion of end-to-end routes. The backpressure approach is highly agile and can be used as both a stand alone routing algorithm and a congestion control algorithm for well-known routing protocols. We have demonstrated performance analysis and implemented the suggested algorithms in a DTN environment using the ONE simulator. Using the simulation, we compared our new routing algorithm with other well-known algorithms (Epidemic, Prophet, MaxProp, and Spray and Wait). The main outcome of the simulation shows a significant improvement in energy consumption while sustaining the delivery ratio. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first ever discussion and implementation of dynamic backpressure routing in DTNs.