Fuzzy-based Message Scheduling and Dropping in Delay Tolerant Networks

Abstract

Epidemic-based routing protocol in Delay-Tolerant Network (DTN) is considered to provide a good network utilization in term of delivery probability, and average delivery delay. However, to achieve the goal of a better utilization of the network, an efficient buffer management and scheduling policy are needed. In this paper, we introduce a buffer management and scheduling policy for further improvement of a spray-based DTN protocol, namely Fuzzy-based Message Scheduling and Dropping (FMSD) protocol. The proposed FMSD protocol uses fuzzy logic to prioritize messages to be sent to other nodes, as well as the policy whether to drop messages in order to accept new messages from other nodes. We also provide simulation results to show that the FMSD protocol can achieve better network utilization in terms of high delivery probability, lower delay and lower overhead comparing to many other existing protocols.