Home-Based Multi-Copy Routing in Mobile Social Networks

A Mobile Social Network (MSN) is a typical Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) composed of mobile nodes with social characteristics. Routing design and optimization are difficult because of the fast topology changes in such network. However, realistic mobility trace shows that mobile nodes in MSNs generally visit a few locations called homes, frequently, while other locations are visited less frequently. In order to evaluate the influence of the home on the routing design and improve the delivery success ratio, we propose two novel home-based multi-copy routing protocols, HBMRZ and HBMR. In HBMRZ, we assume that the message holder has zero-knowledge about the destination when it delivers the message, while in HBMR, the message holder not only knows its own homes but also the destination. Nevertheless, both of the protocols can broadcast message on the basis of the known home information. In addition, extensive simulations are conducted. Numerical simulation demonstrates that it is important to exploit home factor in routing protocols for delivering the message accurately. By using home characteristic, HBMRZ and HBMR achieve a better performance on the delivery success ratio than existing MSN routing algorithms, including Epidemic and Spray&Wait.