CPSC538a Time-Sensitive Distributed Applications Literature Survey: Delay Tolerant Networks

The existing TCP/IP based Internet relies on the Internet Protocol to provide a basic level of networklayer functionality that abstracts out the heterogeneous link-layer technologies over which the Internet operates. IP provides end-to-end packet switched communication across the network under certain, often unstated, assumptions. These assumptions do not necessarily apply to the class of challenged networks [6] that operate under constraints such as limited power and bandwidth, high delay and lack of endto-end connectivity. The recent emergence of these networks and their potential growth has encouraged research into adapting existing architectures and protocols and developing new ones that can be applied in these challenged networks. This literature survey covers a small collection of papers that discuss the research surrounding an architecture for delay tolerant networks that addresses some of the problems posed by challenged networks. Challenged networks are described and the architecture, its components and applications are discussed. The survey is organised as follows. Section 2 discusses challenged networks and the problems they pose, and introduces the papers. Section 3 describes the delay tolerant network architecture and its components. Finally, Section 4 concludes.