Exploring an energy-efficient DTN framework supporting disaster management services in post disaster relief operation

Abstract

In recent years, several investigations have been made on ''challenged network'' [also known as, delay tolerant network (DTN)] architectures highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. In spite of its inherent shortcomings of unreliability and delay, smart-phone based opportunistic network is gaining immense popularity in the research community due to its applicability in different adverse and extreme communication scenarios where traditional communication infrastructure is either unavailable or incapacitated for a long time. Considerable research has been conducted till date to design efficient network architecture for emergency data dissemination in intermittently connected/ challenged networks. Different architectures (ranging from flat to multi-tier) are proposed for implementing opportunistic DTN keeping in view of specific application requirements. However, very few of these proposed architectures have been examined from the perspective of a post disaster communication. Moreover, most DTN architectures are designed by aiming towards increasing delivery probability and reducing latency and as a whole, maximizing network throughput; with very little emphasis on its energy efficiency. The impact of different mobility patterns on existing DTN routing algorithms with respect to data dissemination and energy consumption has also not been studied so far. Our objective, in this paper, is to investigate the impact of different mobility patterns on existing DTN routing protocols and existing DTN architectures and subsequently, come up with a suitable energy efficient DTN framework combining suitable architecture and routing protocol that may be used to offer different disaster management services during postdisaster relief operation. We have done an extensive simulation on ONE simulator with different categories of wellknown existing DTN architectures, mobility models, DTN routing protocols to study the network performance in terms of delivery probability, energy efficiency and overhead ratio. Based on the simulation results, we have tried to figure out a suitable combination of energy efficient architecture, mobility model and routing protocol that fits well in the post disaster communication scenario.Keywords Delay tolerant network Á Post disaster communication network Á DTN architecture categorization Á Post disaster mobility model Á DTN routing protocols Á Energy efficient architecture 1 Introduction

Survey on Simulation for Mobile Ad-Hoc Communication for Disaster Scenarios

“…Recently, Bhattachejee et al [65] compared different DTN routing protocols using different mobility models for post disaster relief operations; however, most of them are mobility models that are not specialized to disaster situations. Their results showed that MaxProp is the best performer in terms of overhead and delivery rate, and Spray and Wait is more efficient than MaxProp in terms of energy consumption.…”

“…For example, for MANETs routing protocols, DSR or AODV presents good performance results on well-connected scenarios [56] . On scenarios where battery is limited, DTNs protocols such as Spray and Wait, and PRoPHET are good alternatives [51,65] . Despite that DTN and MANET protocols seem to have similar communication standards, they were conceived differently.…”

Crowdsourcing-based architecture for post-disaster geolocation: A comparative performance evaluation

“…Nodes can be pedestrians' mobile devices, on-board vehicle specialized devices, fixed relays, etc. In [5], the authors present a classification of these types of nodes, their mobility patterns, and communication abilities (terminals, stationary relays, dedicated fixed or mobile routing facilities, etc.) from the perspective of post-disaster communication and coverage.…”

“…The use of MANET or DTN to deal with a crisis situation has already been proposed [20], [21]. Several studies have compared known protocols in a crisis scenario [5], [22]- [26], or the in everyday life [7], [27], [28]), and have shown the impact of mobility on system performance.…”

“…Despite its lack of realism [29], RWP is often used for simple [26] or non-crisis-specific [30] evaluations or even as a reference or a sub-model of a more specific model. In [5], the authors compare a set of DTN routing protocols in the scenario of Uttarakhand floods (India, 2013, 4 days of intense rainfall, 4200 affected villages, 5700 deaths). The impact of RWP, Map Based [4], Cluster Movement and Post Disaster Mobility (PDM) [31] mobility models is evaluated on top of the ONE simulator.…”