Generic prediction assisted single-copy routing in underwater delay tolerant sensor networks

One challenge in delay tolerant networks (DTNs) is efficient routing, as the lack of contemporaneous end-to-end paths makes conventional routing schemes inapplicable. Although many DTN routing protocols have been proposed, they often have two limitations: many protocols are not mobility cognizant, so they only suit specific mobility models and become inefficient when the environment changes; some protocols employ multi-copy replication to accommodate mobility diversity for increased delivery probability or reduced delay, but they usually do not perform well in resource constrained networks. Due to the unique characteristics of underwater sensor networks (UWSNs), efficient DTN routing becomes even more challenging. In this paper, we propose a generic prediction assisted single-copy routing (PASR) scheme that can be instantiated for different mobility models. PASR first collects a short-duration trace with network connectivity information and employs an effective off-line greedy algorithm to characterize the underlying network mobility patterns, depict the features of best routing paths and provide guidance on how to use historical information. Then it instantiates prediction assisted single-copy online routing protocols based on the guidance. As a result, the instantiated protocols are energy efficient and cognizant of the underlying mobility patterns. We demonstrate the advantages of PASR in underwater sensor networks with various mobility models.