Improving the Performance of Opportunistic Networks in Real-World Applications Using Machine Learning Techniques

In Opportunistic Networks, portable devices such as smartphones, tablets, and wearables carried by individuals, can communicate and save-carry-forward their messages. The message transmission is often in the short range supported by communication protocols, such as Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, and Zigbee. These devices carried by individuals along with a city’s taxis and buses represent network nodes. The mobility, buffer size, message interval, number of nodes, and number of messages copied in such a network influence the network’s performance. Extending these factors can improve the delivery of the messages and, consequently, network performance; however, due to the limited network resources, it increases the cost and appends the network overhead. The network delivers the maximized performance when supported by the optimal factors. In this paper, we measured, predicted, and analyzed the impact of these factors on network performance using the Opportunistic Network Environment simulator and machine learning techniques. We calculated the optimal factors depending on the network features. We have used three datasets, each with features and characteristics reflecting different network structures. We collected the real-time GPS coordinates of 500 taxis in San Francisco, 320 taxis in Rome, and 196 public transportation buses in Münster, Germany, within 48 h. We also compared the network performance without selfish nodes and with 5%, 10%, 20%, and 50% selfish nodes. We suggested the optimized configuration under real-world conditions when resources are limited. In addition, we compared the performance of Epidemic, Prophet, and PPHB++ routing algorithms fed with the optimized factors. The results show how to consider the best settings for the network according to the needs and how self-sustaining nodes will affect network performance.