Congestion control in disruption-tolerant networks

Abstract

Controlling congestion is critical to ensure adequate network operation and performance. That is especially the case in networks operating in "challenged"-or "extreme" environments where episodic connectivity is part of the network's normal operation. Our goal is to study congestion control mechanisms that have been proposed for these so-called disruption tolerant networks, or DTNs. In this paper, we conduct a performance study comparing existing DTN congestion control mechanisms for the specific case of interplanetary networking (IPN) applications. Our results indicate that congestion control helps increase message delivery ratio, even in highly congested network scenarios. Our study also suggests that good design principles for congestion control in IPN scenarios include: using a combination of reactive-and proactive control, using local information instead of relying on global knowledge, and employing mechanisms that are routing protocol independent.