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1, FEBRUARY 2008 77
Abstract—Intermittently connected mobile networks are wire- than providing the envisioned flexibility to the user. Cellular
less networks where most of the time there does not exist a complete access is low bandwidth and expensive, while WiFi access is
path from the source to the destination. There are many real net-
works that follow this model, for example, wildlife tracking sensor
typically only available at a few “hotspots” that the user has to
networks, military networks, vehicular ad hoc networks, etc. In locate and move to, without real “mobile computing”. Further,
this context, conventional routing schemes fail, because they try to ad hoc networks have yet to find much application outside
establish complete end-to-end paths, before any data is sent. the research or military community, while some dire issues
To deal with such networks researchers have suggested to use regarding their scalability properties have been identified [2].
flooding-based routing schemes. While flooding-based schemes
have a high probability of delivery, they waste a lot of energy The reason for these failures is that many of the assumptions
and suffer from severe contention which can significantly degrade made in the wired world, and which are largely responsible for
their performance. Furthermore, proposed efforts to reduce the the success of the Internet, do not hold in the wireless environ-
overhead of flooding-based schemes have often been plagued ment. The concept of a connected, stable network over which
by large delays. With this in mind, we introduce a new family data can be routed reliably rarely holds there. Wireless signals
of routing schemes that “spray” a few message copies into the
are subject to multi-path propagation, fading, and interference
network, and then route each copy independently towards the
destination. We show that, if carefully designed, spray routing making wireless links unstable and lossy. Additionally, frequent
not only performs significantly fewer transmissions per message, node mobility (e.g., as in vehicular ad hoc networks—VANETs
but also has lower average delivery delays than existing schemes; [3]) significantly reduces the time a “good” link exists, and
furthermore, it is highly scalable and retains good performance constantly changes the network connectivity graph. As a re-
under a large range of scenarios. sult, wireless connectivity is volatile and usually intermittent,
Finally, we use our theoretical framework proposed in our 2004
paper to analyze the performance of spray routing. We also use this
as nodes move in and out of range from access points or from
theory to show how to choose the number of copies to be sprayed each other, and as signal quality fluctuates.
and how to optimally distribute these copies to relays. In addition to the cases of wireless Internet access and ad hoc
Index Terms—Ad hoc networks, delay tolerant networks, inter- networks, the need to depart from the traditional networking
mittent connectivity, routing. practices has been recognized for a number of emerging wireless
applications. Sensor networks can significantly increase their
lifetime by powering down nodes often, or by using very low
I. INTRODUCTION power radios. This implies that many links will be down fre-
quently, and complete end-to-end paths often will not exist [4].
W IRELESS data networks often aim at extending Internet
services into the wireless domain. Services like GPRS
enable Internet access through the widespread cellular infra-
Tactical networks may also choose to operate in an intermit-
tent fashion for LPI/LPD reasons (low probability of intercep-
structure, while the deployment of WiFi 802.11 access points tion and low probability of detection) [5]. Finally, deep space
provides direct Internet connectivity for wireless users (mainly networks [6] and underwater networks [7] often have to deal
laptops and PDAs) that are within range. Additionally, self-or- with long propagation delays and/or intermittent connectivity,
ganized (“ad hoc” or “peer-to-peer”) wireless networks have as well. These new networks are often referred to collectively
been proposed for applications where setting up a supporting, as Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN [8]). What they all share in
wired infrastructure might be too costly (e.g., sensor networks) common is that they can neither make any assumptions about
or simply not an option (e.g., disaster relief, deep space net- the existence of a contemporaneous path to the destination nor
works). assume accurate knowledge of the destination’s location or even
Despite these ongoing efforts, wireless access currently address, beforehand.
seems to give rise to inconvenience and frustration more often Under such intermittent connectivity many traditional proto-
cols fail (e.g., TCP, DNS, etc. [8], [9]). It is for this reason that
novel networking architectures are being pursued that could pro-
Manuscript received August 29, 2005; revised June 25, 2006, and December
7, 2006; approved by IEEE/ACM TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORKING Editor S.
vide mobile nodes with better service under such intermittent
Palazzo. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science characteristics [9], [10]. Arguably though, the biggest challenge
Foundation under Grant CNS-0520017. to enable networking in intermittently connected environments
T. Spyropoulos was with INRIA, Sophia Antipolis, France, and is now with is that of routing. Conventional Internet routing protocols (e.g.,
ETH, Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland (e-mail: spyropoulos@tik.ee.ethz.ch).
K. Psounis and C. S. Raghavendra are with the Department of Electrical Engi- RIP and OSPF), as well as routing schemes for mobile ad hoc
neering and Computer Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, networks such as DSR, AODV, etc. [11], assume that a com-
CA 90089 USA (e-mail: kpsounis@usc.edu; raghu@usc.edu). plete path exists between a source and a destination, and try to
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TNET.2007.897964
discover these paths before any useful data is sent. Thus, if no copy schemes; (ii) can at the same time achieve better delays
end-to-end paths exist most of the time, these protocols fail to than all existing schemes in most scenarios, if carefully de-
deliver any data to all but the few connected nodes. signed; and (iii) has very desirable scalability characteristics,
However, this does not mean that packets can never be de- with its relative performance improving as the network size in-
livered in these networks. Over time, different links come up creases.
and down due to node mobility. If the sequence of connectivity Additionally, we provide a theoretical analysis of the perfor-
graphs over a time interval are overlapped, then an end-to-end mance of spray routing that holds for a number of popular and
path might exist. This implies that a message could be sent recent mobility models. In addition to the inherent value of such
over an existing link, get buffered at the next hop until the next an analysis for performance prediction, we also use our theory
link in the path comes up (e.g., a new node moves in range to perform system design. Specifically, we provide an efficient
or an existing one wakes-up), and so on and so forth, until it algorithm that each node can use to locally choose the number
reaches its destination. This model of routing constitutes a sig- of copies to generate in a given scenario, and also show how
nificant departure from existing routing practices. It is usually to optimally distribute these copies. Our theory also provides
referred to as “mobility-assisted” routing, because node mo- a “knob” to explicitly take advantage of different tradeoffs be-
bility often needs to be exploited to deliver a message to its tween resource usage and performance, allowing a wireless de-
destination (other names include “encounter-based forwarding” vice to adapt to the individual user’s needs, even in situations
or “store-carry-and-forward”). Routing here consists of inde- where a node initially has little or no information about the net-
pendent, local forwarding decisions, based on current connec- work.
tivity information and predictions of future connectivity infor- In the next section, we go over some existing related work.
mation, and made in an opportunistic fashion. The crucial ques- Section III describes our proposed solution, Spray routing, in
tion any routing algorithm has to answer in this context is “who detail. We deal with the issue of optimal spraying algorithms and
makes a good next hop when no path to the destination currently analyze their expected delay in Section IV, and then in Section V
exists and/or no other information about this destination might we show how to optimally choose the total number of copies
be available?”. per message to be sprayed. Simulation results are presented in
Despite a number of existing proposals for opportunistic Section VI, where the performance of Spray routing is compared
routing [12]–[16] the answer to the previous question has against a number of existing schemes with respect to the mes-
usually been “everyone” or “almost everyone”. The majority of sage delivery delay and the total number of transmissions. Fi-
existing protocols are flooding-based that distribute duplicate nally, Section VII concludes the paper.
copies to all nodes in the network [12] or a subset of them
(e.g., gossiping [15], and utility-based flooding [14]). Although II. RELATED WORK
flooding can be quite fast in some scenarios, the overhead
One approach to deal with very sparse networks or connec-
involved in terms of bandwidth, buffer space, and energy
tivity “disruptions” [5] is to reinforce connectivity on demand,
dissipation is often prohibitive for small wireless devices (e.g.,
by bringing for example additional communication resources
sensors). We call schemes like these, which use more than
one copy per message, “multi-copy” schemes. Single-copy into the network when necessary (e.g., satellites, UAVs, etc.).
schemes that only route one copy per message can considerably Similarly, one could force a number of specialized nodes (e.g.,
reduce resource waste [1], [4]. Yet, they can often be orders robots) to follow a given trajectory between disconnected parts
of magnitude slower than multi-copy algorithms and are in- of the network [18], [19]. In yet other cases, connectivity might
herently less reliable. These latter characteristics might make be predictable, even though its intermittent (e.g., planetary and
single-copy schemes very undesirable for some applications satellite movement in Inter-planetary Networks—IPN [6]). Tra-
(e.g., in disaster recovery networks or tactical networks beyond ditional routing algorithms could then be adapted to compute
enemy lines; even if communication must be intermittent, shortest delivery time paths by taking into account future con-
minimizing delay or message loss is a priority). Summarizing, nectivity [20], [21]. Nevertheless, such approaches are orthog-
no routing scheme for intermittently connected environments onal to our work; our aim is to study what can be done when
currently exists that can achieve both small delays and prudent connectivity is neither enforced nor predictable, but rather op-
usage of the network and node resources. portunistic and subject to the statistics of the mobility model
For this reason, we propose a family of multi-copy proto- followed by nodes.
cols called Spray routing, which can achieve both good delays There exists a growing amount of work on opportunistic,
and low transmissions. Spray routing algorithms generate only a DTN routing algorithms. One of the simplest approaches is to
small, carefully chosen number of copies to ensure that the total let the source or a moving relay node (DataMule) carry the
number of transmissions is small and controlled. Then, an ap- message all the way to the destination (Direct Transmission)
propriate single-copy algorithm (based on the insight acquired [4]. Although this scheme performs only one transmission,
from our study of single-copy routing strategies [17]) is used it is extremely slow [22]. Other single-copy schemes have
to route each of the copies independently. From the perspective also been explored that can forward a message to improve
of functionality, spray routing can be viewed as a tradeoff be- end-to-end delay [1]. Yet, an even faster way to perform routing
tween single and multiple copy techniques. Despite this, theory in intermittently connected mobile networks (or ICMNs),
and simulations show that spray routing: (i) achieves an order called Epidemic Routing, is to flood the message throughout
of magnitude reduction in transmissions compared to flooding- the network [12]. Although this scheme is guaranteed to find
based schemes, and even fewer transmissions than some single- the shortest path when no contention exists for shared resources
SPYROPOULOS et al.: EFFICIENT ROUTING IN INTERMITTENTLY CONNECTED MOBILE NETWORKS: THE MULTIPLE-COPY CASE 79
like wireless bandwidth and buffer space, it is extremely In the context of disconnected networks, the performance
wasteful of such resources. What is worse, in realistic scenarios of epidemic routing with or without contention has been ad-
where bandwidth, memory space, or energy resources might be dressed in a number of works [1], [15], [37]–[39]. Addition-
scarce, the performance of flooding degrades significantly due ally, there also exist some efforts to analyze the performance
to congestion [14], [23], [24]. of 2-hop schemes using redundant copies [25], [39]. However,
A number of approaches have been taken to reduce the these works often ignore the effect of different copy distribu-
overhead and improve the performance of epidemic routing tion policies, and use simulations to acquire some of the model
[13]–[16], [24], [25]. In [25] the authors examine a number parameters [25], [29], [39]. This significantly reduces the use-
of different strategies to suppress redundant transmissions fulness of analytical expressions. In this paper, we address all
and clean up valuable buffer space after a message has been these issues and provide analytical expressions for the perfor-
delivered with epidemic routing. In [15], [24] a message is mance of spraying under a range of mobility models.
forwarded to another node with some probability smaller than
one (i.e., data is “gossiped” instead of flooded). Finally, in III. SPRAY ROUTING
[13] a simple method to take advantage of the history of past In this section, we explore the problem of efficient routing
encounters is implemented in order to make fewer and more in intermittently connected mobile networks (ICMNs), and de-
“informed” forwarding decisions than epidemic routing. The scribe our proposed solution, Spray routing. Our problem setup
concept of history-based or utility-based routing is further consists of a number of nodes moving inside a bounded area ac-
elaborated in [14], [26] and has also been studied for regular, cording to a stochastic mobility model. Additionally, we assume
connected networks [27]. Results from these works indicate that the network is disconnected at most times, and that trans-
that using the age of last encounter with a node, when making missions are faster than node movement (i.e., it takes less time
a forwarding decision, results in superior performance than to transmit a message using the wireless medium—ignoring
flooding. Finally, it has also been proposed that ideas from queueing delay—than to move it physically for the same dis-
the area of Network Coding could be useful to reduce the tance using node mobility1).
number of bytes transmitted by flooding [16]. Despite the large Our study of single-copy routing algorithms [17] showed that
number of existing approaches, most proposed schemes are using only one copy per message is often not enough to deliver
based on epidemic-routing or some other form of controlled a message with high reliability and relatively small delay. At
flooding [12]–[14], and, thus, are plagued by the shortcomings the same time, routing too many copies in parallel, as in the
of flooding-based schemes [23], [24]. case of epidemic routing or gossiping, can often have disastrous
The idea of “spraying” is also not entirely new. For example, effects on performance (as is evident also from Fig. 2 later in
in cellular networks it has been used to deliver data to nodes Section IV-C). In addition to the very high number of trans-
that are highly mobile and change their attachment point fre- missions, flooding-based schemes begin to suffer severely from
quently [28]. Instead of sending the message only to the base contention as traffic increases, and their delay increases rapidly.
station where the node was last seen, duplicate messages are Based on these observations, we have identified the following
also sent to other, nearby base stations. Furthermore, the idea desirable design goals for a routing protocol in intermittently
of using a few redundant copies to improve delay has also been connected mobile networks:
proposed elsewhere in both connected and disconnected ad hoc • perform significantly fewer transmissions than flooding-
networks [25], [29], [30]. However, these works do not answer based routing schemes, under all conditions.
important questions like how the copies should be distributed, or • deliver a message faster than existing single and multi-copy
how many of them. An interesting effort to address such issues, schemes, and exhibit close to optimal delays.
yet in the context of reliability, is undertaken in [31]. Finally, a • deliver the majority of the messages generated;
growing number of efforts has been devoted to collect real mo- Additionally, we would like this protocol to also be:
bility traces [32]–[34] and use them to evaluate the feasibility • highly scalable, that is, maintain the above performance
of the DTN approach [34]. behavior despite changes in network size or node density.
Also, in the theory arena, a large body of work has recently • simple, and require as little knowledge about the network
emerged trying to analyze the trade-offs involved between the as possible, in order to facilitate its implementation.
asymptotic capacity and the asymptotic delay of the 2-hop A. “Spray and Wait” Routing
scheme proposed in [22], and of related schemes exploiting
Since too many transmissions are detrimental on perfor-
mobility [29], [30], [35], [36]. Although asymptotic results
mance, especially as the network size increases, our first
provide valuable insight on the scalability of a given family of
protocol, Spray and Wait, distributes only a small number of
protocols, they often do not provide the necessary insight to de-
copies each to a different relay. Each copy is then “carried” all
sign efficient and practical schemes. Furthermore, the majority
the way to the destination by the designated relay.
of these works are concerned with delay in connected networks,
Definition 3.1 (Spray and Wait): Spray and Wait routing con-
where all related analytical results are strictly a function of the
sists of the following two phases:
number of nodes (other parameters scale to ensure connectivity)
[29], [35]. Here, we’re interested in a much wider range of 1This is reasonable assumption with modern wireless devices. Assume, for
connectivity scenarios, where transmission range, number of example, that a node has a range of 100 m and a radio of 1 Mbps rate. Then, it
could send a packet of 1 KB at a distance of 100 m in only 8 ms. Even if that
nodes, and network size are independent parameters, whose node is a fast moving car with a speed of say 65 mph, it could carry the same
individual effect on performance we would like to analyze. packet at a mere distance of less than 1 m in the same 8 ms.
80 IEEE/ACM TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORKING, VOL. 16, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2008
• spray phase: for every message originating at a source problem could be solved if some other single-copy scheme is
node, message copies are initially spread—forwarded by used to route a copy after it is handed over to a relay, a scheme
the source and possibly other nodes receiving a copy—to that takes advantage of transmissions (unlike Direct Transmis-
distinct relays. (Details about different spraying methods sion).
will be given later.) We propose the use of the single-copy utility-based scheme
• wait phase: if the destination is not found in the spraying from [17] for this purpose. Each node maintains a timer for
phase, each of the nodes carrying a message copy per- every other node in the network, which records the time elapsed
forms “Direct Transmission” (i.e., will forward the mes- since the two nodes last encountered each other2 (i.e., came
sage only to its destination). within transmission range). These timers are similar to the age
Spray and Wait decouples the number of transmissions per of last encounter in [27], and are useful, because they con-
message from the total number of nodes. Thus, transmissions tain indirect (relative) location information. Specifically, for a
can be kept small and essentially fixed for a large range of large number of mobility models, it can be shown that a smaller
scenarios. Additionally, its mechanism combines the speed timer value on average implies a smaller distance from the node
of epidemic routing with the simplicity and thriftiness of in question. Further, we use a “transitivity function” for timer
direct transmission. Initially, it “jump-starts” spreading mes- values (see details in [17]), in order to diffuse this indirect loca-
sage copies quickly in a manner similar to epidemic routing. tion information much faster than regular last encounter based
However, it stops when enough copies have been sprayed to schemes [27]. The basic intuition behind this is the following:
guarantee that at least one of them will reach the destination, in most situations, if node has a small timer value for node
with high probability. If nodes move quickly enough around , and another node (with no info about ) encounters node
the network or “cover” a sizeable part of the network area , then could safely assume that it is also probably close to
in a given trip, we will show that only a small number of node . We assume that these timers are the only information
copies can create enough diversity to achieve close-to-optimal available to a node regarding the network (i.e., no location info,
delays. Some examples of applications with such favorable etc.).
mobility characteristics would be Vehicular Ad hoc Networks We have seen in [17] that appropriately designed utility-based
for real-time traffic reports and accident prevention [3], or a schemes, based on these timer values, have very good perfor-
wireless mesh network over city buses equipped with radios mance in scenarios were mobility is low and localized. This is
[20]. the exact situation were Spray and Wait loses its performance
As we mentioned earlier, the basic idea behind Spray and advantage. Therefore, we propose a scheme were a fixed number
Wait (i.e., extending the 2-hop scheme of [22] to introduce more of copies are spread initially exactly as in Spray and Wait, but
than one relays) is relatively simple and has been identified as then each copy is routed independently according to the single-
beneficial by other researchers also [25], [29], [30]. However, a copy utility-based scheme with transitivity [17]. We call our
number of important questions need to be answered first, before second scheme Spray and Focus.
the desirable performance can be achieved: (i) How many mes- Definition 3.2 (Spray and Focus): Spray and Focus routing
sage copies should one use in a given scenario? (ii) How should consists of the following two phases:
these copies be optimally distributed? (iii) How small delays • spray phase: for every message originating at a source
can one achieve in various settings, without compromising the node, message copies are initially spread—forwarded by
requirement for very few transmissions? and (iv) How does the the source and possibly other nodes receiving a copy—to
performance of Spray and Wait scale, as the number of nodes in distinct “relays”.
the network increases to the limit? We will be answering each • focus phase: let denote the utility of node X for
of these questions in the remaining of the paper. destination Y; a node A, carrying a copy for destination D,
forwards its copy to a new node B it encounters, if and only
B. “Spray and Focus” Routing if , where (utility threshold)
is a parameter of the algorithm.
Although Spray and Wait combines simplicity and effi-
ciency, there are some situations were it might fall short. As
IV. PERFORMANCE OF SPRAY ROUTING
explained earlier, it requires the existence of enough nodes
that roam around the network often, which could potentially In this section, we will analyze the delay of Spray routing.
carry a message to a destination that lies far. Usually, Spray In addition to the intrinsic value of such a theoretical analysis,
and Wait spreads all its copies quickly to the node’s immediate which is the ability to predict the performance of the schemes in
neighborhood. Hence, if the mobility of each node is restricted a larger range of scenarios than simulations or experiments can,
to a small local area, then none of the nodes carrying a copy we also need this theory to do system design. First, we would
might ever see the destination. like to know what is the right number of copies to be sprayed,
An example where such localized mobility might arise could in order to achieve good performance for Spraying algorithms.
be, for example, a university campus, where most people tend to Without this number spraying performance could be as bad as
stay or move locally within their buildings for long stretches of that of Direct Transmissions or Epidemic routing in different
time [33]. In such situations, partial paths may exist over which scenarios. Second, we envision many situations where the user
a message copy could be quickly transmitted closer to the des- 2In practical situations, each node would actually maintain a cache of the most
tination. Yet, in Spray and Wait a relay with a copy will naively recent nodes that it has encountered, in order to reduce the overhead involved
wait until it moves within range of the destination itself. This in a large network.
SPYROPOULOS et al.: EFFICIENT ROUTING IN INTERMITTENTLY CONNECTED MOBILE NETWORKS: THE MULTIPLE-COPY CASE 81
(or his equipment on his behalf) should be able to evaluate the the expected delay of the spraying phase. Further, this delay is
potential performance benefits by using some extra copies, and independent of the particular single-copy scheme that is used to
compare them with the respective costs (e.g., potential energy route each copy in the second phase.
costs, “forwarding credits” spent, or even monetary costs) so A number of different spraying heuristics can be envisioned.
as to decide on the specific tradeoffs that suit him personally. For example, the simplest way is to have the source node for-
However, in order to be able to do so, we need to first derive an ward all copies to the first distinct nodes it encounters (we
appropriate delay expression that quantifies the effect of using call this scheme “Source Spraying”). A better way is the fol-
a given number of copies on performance. lowing.
Finally, if mobility-assisted routing and delay tolerant net- Definition 4.1 (Binary Spraying.): The source of a message
working is to ever become acceptable by the user as a useful al- initially starts with copies; any node that has message
ternative for mobile networking, it will be necessary to provide copies (source or relay), and encounters another node (with
him with some sort of (frequently updated) estimates or predic- no copies), hands over to of its copies and keeps
tions of the level of service that he should expect (e.g., “cur- for itself; when it is left with only one copy, it switches to Direct
rently connected to Internet: all services available” or “frequent Transmission or Utility-based routing, depending on the flavor
disconnections: e-mail and limited web access available”). In of spray routing used.
a connected environment, direct measurements (e.g., round-trip The following theorem states that Binary Spraying is optimal,
time) would serve this purpose. However, in the intermittent en- when node movement is independent and identically distributed
vironment, collecting such end-to-end statistics is much more (IID).
difficult. Instead, local measurements should be used to predict Theorem 4.1: When all nodes move in an IID manner, Binary
end-to-end values based on some appropriate theoretical model. Spraying minimizes the expected time until all copies have been
Throughout this and the next section, we will be making the distributed.
following assumptions: Proof: Let us call a node “active” when it has more than
Network: nodes move on a two-dimensional one copy of a message. Let us further define a spraying algo-
torus. Each node can transmit up to distance meters rithm in terms of a function as follows: when
away, where is much smaller than the value required for con- an active node with copies encounters another node, it hands
nectivity [40]. We assume that links are bi-directional, and that over to it copies, and keeps the remaining . Any
each message transmission takes one time unit. spraying algorithm (i.e., any ) can be represented by the fol-
Mobility Models: We assume that all nodes move according lowing binary tree with the source as its root: assign the root a
to some stochastic mobility model (“MM”), whose “meeting value of ; if the current node has a value create a right
times” are approximately exponentially distributed or have an child with a value of and a left one with a value of
exponential tail with expected meeting time equal to ; continue until all leaf nodes have a value of 1.
(see [41] for a rigorous definition of hitting and meeting times). A particular spraying method corresponds then to a sequence
It has been shown that a number of popular mobility models like of visiting all nodes of the tree. This sequence is random. Nev-
Random Walk [41], Random Waypoint and Random Direction ertheless, on the average, all tree nodes at the same level are vis-
[25], [42], as well as more realistic, synthetic models based on ited in parallel. Further, since only active nodes may hand over
these [42] exhibit such (approximately) exponential encounter additional copies, the higher the number of active nodes when
characteristics. Therefore, the analysis and algorithms of this copies are spread, the smaller the residual expected delay until
and the following section apply to all these models. all copies are spread. Since the total number of tree nodes is
Contention: Throughout our analysis we assume that band- fixed for any spraying function , it is easy to see
width and buffer space are infinite. In other words, we assume that the tree structure that has the maximum number of nodes
that there is no contention for these resources. Although con- at every level, also has the maximum number of active nodes
tention is an important factor for flooding-based schemes (as (on the average) at every step. This tree is the balanced tree, and
we shall show later in our simulations), we argue that it is sig- corresponds to Binary Spraying.
nificantly less of an issue for our spraying schemes that perform
only a handful of transmissions most of the time. Also, in net- B. Delay of Spray Routing
works that are quite sparse, we expect that only a few nodes We will first calculate the expected end-to-end delay of our
would be close enough each time to compete for the same band- simpler scheme, Spray and Wait. After all copies are distributed,
width. Therefore, we choose to ignore contention, in order to be each of the relays will independently look for the destination
able to derive useful closed form expressions. We will show that (if the latter has not been found yet). In other words, the delay
the error introduced by this assumption is small for the case of of the wait phase is independent of the spraying method. We
spraying schemes. compute this delay in the following Lemma.
Lemma 4.1: Let denote the expected duration of the
A. Optimal Spraying “wait” phase, if needed, and let denote the expected
In both Spray and Wait and Spray and Focus there are meeting time under the given mobility model. Then, is
copies that need to be spread initially to different relays. The independent of the spraying method used, and given by
first interesting question to be answered is how these copies
should be distributed. (We will talk about how to choose the
value of later.) The choice of spraying method directly affects (1)
82 IEEE/ACM TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORKING, VOL. 16, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2008
Proof: The time until one of the relays finds the destination spraying instance, and let us color the tree nodes that have al-
is the minimum of independent and exponentially distributed ready been reached in the spraying phase. Obviously, the col-
random variables, with average . oring sequence that results in the highest , and therefore the
Unlike the expected duration of the wait phase, the duration minimum for all , is a breadth-first traversal. In this case,
of the spray phase largely depends on the way the copies are , and , . How-
spread. The following theorem calculates the expected delivery ever, a given spraying instance might not exactly follow such a
time of Binary Spray and Wait. It defines a system of recur- breadth-first traversal. It is possible to derive the exact delay by
sive equations that calculates the (expected) residual time after averaging over all possible traversals, but it involves meticulous
copies have been spread, in terms of the time until the next calculations that do not offer any interesting insight or signifi-
is distributed, plus the remaining time thereafter. cant increase in accuracy (as we shall see in Section IV-C). We
It is important to note that the following result is generic. By therefore assume that breadth-first traversal is always the case,
plugging into the equations the appropriate meeting time value in order to keep our equations simple. Finally,
, we can calculate the expected delay of Spray and Wait is given by (1).
for the respective mobility model [42]. The above result, albeit quite useful in accurately predicting
Theorem 4.2: Let denote the expected delay of the performance of Spray and Wait, is not in closed form. This
the Binary Spray and Wait algorithm, when copies are spread makes it difficult to theoretically compare the performance of
per message. Let further denote the expected remaining Spray and Wait to that of the optimal scheme [17], or to cal-
delay after message copies have been spread. Then, culate the number of copies to be used in closed form (more
, where can be calculated by the following about this in the next Section). For this reason, in the following
system of recursive equations: lemma we also derive an upper bound that is in closed form, by
assuming that Source Spray and Wait is performed, that is, only
the source can forward a new copy. Note that Source Spray and
Wait always has a larger delay than Binary Spray and Wait.
Lemma 4.2: The following upper bound holds for the ex-
pected delay of Spray and Wait:
(2)
where is the th harmonic number, i.e,
.
Proof: Assume that, at some time instant, of the copies
have already been spread, that is, there are nodes, including the
Proof: Let us look into the case, when there are nodes source node, carrying a message copy. Since only the source can
that have one or more copies. Further, let us assume forward another copy, the expected time until another message
that, among the nodes with copies, of them have more than copy is distributed is equal to the time until the source meets one
one (i.e., are “active”), and thus are allowed to forward copies of the remaining nodes, that is, . Hence,
further to other relays. Since all hitting times are independent the expected time until different relays are encountered
and exponentially distributed, the time until any of the nodes equals .
with a message copy encounters any of the nodes without This is the time until message copies, including that of the
one is equal to . Now, if the node source, are spread among the nodes.
encountered is the destination (with probability ) the Finally, the probability that the destination is not in the first
message gets delivered. Otherwise (with probability nodes encountered (and, thus, a wait phase is needed)
) the algorithm continues, performing one of the is . Putting it
following: a) with probability it is one of the active nodes altogether we get that the expected delay of Spray and Wait is
that encountered this other node, and therefore hands it over at most
half its copies; nodes have copies now, and an expected
time remains until delivery; b) with probability
it was one of the other nodes carrying a message copy
that encountered a new node. Since these relays only forward
their message copy to its destination, nothing happens, and the This bound becomes pessimistic as the ratio increases.
remaining time is still . Putting it all together This is because the bound basically includes the full time until
all copies are spread, regardless of whether the destination is
found in one of the initial steps of the spraying phase. How-
ever, when the number of copies is much smaller than the total
number of nodes (which is the case of most interest) this bound
is tight.
Now, let us represent again a given spraying algorithm as a It is important to note that all results regarding the spraying
tree graph (see Theorem 4.1). Let us further look at a given phase derived so far for Spray and Wait (i.e., optimal spraying
SPYROPOULOS et al.: EFFICIENT ROUTING IN INTERMITTENTLY CONNECTED MOBILE NETWORKS: THE MULTIPLE-COPY CASE 83
method and its expected delay) hold for Spray and Focus,
as well. However, the delay of the two protocols does differ
in the second phase. In the focus phase each copy follows a
single-copy utility-based algorithm. Utility-based schemes have
memory, making it quite more involved to calculate their delay.
We have calculated the expected delay for the single-copy
utility-based algorithm with a simple utility function in [17],
by using a Markov Chain whose state is the distance from the
Fig. 1. Comparison of analytical and simulation results for Spray and Wait
destination. However, we do not know if the distribution of under Random Walk (left) and Random Direction (right) mobility.
this delay is exponential. In addition, the routing of multiple
copies will not be independent, since copies at the beginning of
the focus phase would start from roughly the same area of the
utility field, and experience similar transmission opportunities
(see [17]). Hence, we do not expect something as simple as
Lemma 4.1 to hold for Spray and Focus. Nevertheless, we can
use the delay of Spray and Wait as an upper bound on the delay
of Spray and Focus. We have proven in [1] that utility-based
forwarding is (on average) better than not forwarding (i.e.,
direct transmission). Therefore, the delay of Spray and Focus
will be at least as good as that of Spray and Wait, for the same Fig. 2. Comparison of analytical and simulation results for Spray and Wait
number of copies used (disregarding contention). N
when there is contention. We assume Random Direction mobility. = 500 2
As part of future work we plan to investigate the difficult 500,M K L
= 50, = 20, = 10, and average pause time is 100.
problem of multiple copies being routed in parallel in a given
utility field, to see if meaningful theoretical solutions could be
drawn. One direction, for example, would be to assume that all We’re also interested in how fast our analytical expressions
copies start from the same position/distance, but then each one would diverge from real values when increasing amounts of
is routed independently. This scenario could be modelled with contention (and the overhead of a MAC layer) are introduced
a two-dimensional Markov Chain, whose state is the distance (Fig. 2). Let us look first at the plots for Spray and Wait. As
from the destination (as in [17]) and the number of copies at explained in the beginning of this section, although contention
that distance. However, we expect these calculations to be quite does affect the accuracy of our theoretical expressions, the error
involved, possibly brute force in the most general case, and thus introduced for Spray and Wait is not large ( 20%), even for
beyond the scope of this paper. large traffic loads. Therefore, we believe our analytical expres-
sions are useful in predicting performance in more realistic sce-
narios with contention, as well. We also compare plots for epi-
C. Simulation versus Analysis demic routing (the theoretical one is for an oracle-based scheme
[1]), in order to show how the same traffic loads affect the accu-
In this final section we evaluate the accuracy of our analytical
racy of existing analytical expressions for the latter [42]. As is
results regarding the expected delay of Spray routing. In Fig. 1,
evident by these plots, the actual delays observed for epidemic
we compare theoretical and simulation results for Binary Spray
routing become increasingly worse than what theory predicts.
and Wait, as a function of the number of copies spread . The
This demonstrates the need to add an appropriate contention
simulation plots correspond to “graph simulations” with no con-
model when it comes to modeling flooding-based schemes. A
tention (only 1 message routed), in order to evaluate the correct-
first effort to that direction can be found in [38].
ness of our analytical expressions. In the left plot, 30 nodes per-
form independent random walks in a 50 50 network ( ,
i.e., only nodes in the same position can communicate). We also V. OPTIMIZING SPRAY ROUTING TO MEET
include a plot for the bound of Lemma 4.2, as well as a plot for PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS
the optimal delay in this scenario. In the right plot, we compare By definition, many ICMN networks are expected to operate
theoretical and simulation results for Spray and Wait, when 30 in stressed environments and by nature be delay tolerant. Never-
nodes perform independent Random Direction mobility in a 500 theless, in many situations the network designer or the applica-
500 network (pause time is 0, and ). As one can see tion itself might still impose certain performance requirements
from this figure, simulation and analytical plots for Spray and on the protocols (e.g., maximum delay, or maximum transmis-
Wait present a very close match for both mobility models. This sions). It is of special interest therefore to examine how Spray
validates the generality of the analytical expressions (we have routing can be tuned to achieve different levels of performance
also found similar accuracy for Random Waypoint mobility). in a given scenario.
Additionally, it is evident that the upper bound of (2) is tight For example, imagine a scenario where a number of users
for low ratios. Finally, one can see that Spray and Wait establish a peer-to-peer wireless network for messaging and
can already achieve a delay only 1.5–2 times that of the op- content sharing [9], [10], and where each node has a limited
timal scheme, using just a handful of transmissions (Epidemic amount of forwarding requests for other nodes (“credits”). If a
Routing performs transmission under no contention). user knows how much performance his credit can buy, he has
84 IEEE/ACM TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORKING, VOL. 16, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2008
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90 IEEE/ACM TRANSACTIONS ON NETWORKING, VOL. 16, NO. 1, FEBRUARY 2008