A geographical partitioning-based pigeon assignment in a pigeon network

A special type of disruption/delay tolerant networks, known as pigeon networks, utilizes controllable vehicles called pigeons to convey messages among segregated hosts. This paper investigates the optimal assignment of multiple pigeons to serve hosts in a pigeon network such that the average message delay is minimized. To achieve this goal, first we provide an asymptotic analysis on the effectiveness of geographical partitioning-based method, which establishes the theoretical foundation for partitioning-based pigeon assignment. Second, we derive a near-optimal assignment of pigeons for a given partitioning through analysis. Finally, we design a pigeon assignment algorithm based on the theoretical analysis we have provided. Simulation results show that our algorithm can achieve lower delay compared to the existing schemes in delay tolerant networks.