A Buffer Scheduling Method Based on Message Priority in DTNs

Routing protocols in DTNs usually utilize multiple message copies to guarantee the message delivery, in order to overcome unpredictable node mobility and easily-interrupted connections. A store-carry-and-forward paradigm was also proposed to further improve the message delivery. However, excessive message copies lead to the shortage of buffer and bandwidth. The spray and Wait routing protocol has been proposed to reduce the network overload caused by the buffer and transmission of unrestricted message copies. However, when a node’s buffer is quite constrained, there still exist congestion problems. In this paper, we propose a message Scheduling and Drop Strategy on spray and wait Routing Protocol (SDSRP). To improve the delivery ratio, first of all, SDSRP calculates the priority of each message by evaluating the impact of both replicating and dropping a message copy on delivery ratio. Subsequently, scheduling and drop decisions are made according to the priority. In order to further increase delivery ratio, we propose an Improved message Scheduling and Drop Strategy on spray and wait Routing Protocol (ISDSRP) through enhancing the accuracy of estimating parameters. Finally, we conduct extensive simulations based on synthetic and real traces in ONE. The results show that, compared with other buffer management strategies, ISDSRP and SDSRP achieve higher delivery ratio, similar average hopcounts, and lower overhead ratio.