Anycasting in DTNs using virtual magnetic fields

Abstract

The typical low rate of unicast message delivery in DTNs (Delay Tolerant Networks) makes this kind of network unfit for many real-world applications. However, when it is sufficient to deliver a message to at least one node within a set of multiple potential destinations - which is called anycasting - then DTN's message delivery rate become acceptable. This paper presents an adaptation of the Virtual Magnetic Fields algorithm for routing anycast messages in DTNs. The algorithm performs routing through message attraction rather than the traditional approach of message forwarding.