Message routing in vehicular delay-tolerant networks based on human behavior

Abstract

Delay/Disruption-Tolerant Networks (DTNs) have been used in many different scenarios and are characterized by the high mobility of nodes, the constant disconnection, the high delays for message delivery and the frequent partitioning. The union of Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) and DTNs has created a new research field in Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) based on DTN's stored-carry-and-forward mechanism and applying it to the vehicular context. This mechanism allows messages to be routed to their destinations without the need of end-to-end connections. Due to the widespread availability of low cost on-board communication devices, message routing in VDTN has become an important research target. That is why many protocols can be found in the literature with the goal of overcoming the challenges encountered by applications developed for this context. Nevertheless, these proposed protocols do not take into consideration important requirements such as: no dependency on Road Side Units (RSU) and mechanisms to obtain information about the location of vehicles. This paper proposes and describes a message routing algorithm based on consciousness and human behavior in order to address the main demands of the VDTN environment.