Forwarding on Froggers Networks: Principle of Data Flow Equilibrium

Network with link intermittency is becoming an important sub-class of emerging networks of interest. Such a network like delay tolerant network (DTN) that exhibits long delay. However, it also demands higher order of magnitude of intermediate storage. In this research, we present a study of the transit reservoir requirements of this important class of network. We provide a framework to analytically determine the storage requirements. We also present a novel forwarding principle of data-flow-equilibrium, which can minimize the transit buffer requirement without impacting the delay optimality. Both-by analytical derivation of the upper bounds, and by extensive simulation we demonstrate that the principle can drastically reduce the transit buffer requirement without increasing the transport delay.