The Boomerang Protocol: Tieing Data to Geographic Locations in Mobile Disconnected Networks

We present the novel boomerang protocol to efficiently retain information at a particular geographic location in a sparse network of highly mobile nodes without use of infrastructure networks. Our proof-of-concept implementation revealed the main challenge in implementing the Boomerang protocol is to accurately detect whether a node is divergent from a recorded trajectory and then followed up with a detailed study to address the challenge. Simulation with automotive traffic traces for a southern New Jersey region shows that the protocol improves packet return rate by 70% compared to a baseline implementation using shortest path geographic routing.