A moving scope aware routing approach for opportunistic networks

In opportunistic networks, mobile nodes are enabled to communicate with each other even if a route connecting them never exists. Because nodes are not supposed to possess any knowledge about the network topology, each single node acts as a gateway and uses its local knowledge to decide next hop when forwarding messages. It is necessary to find those nodes who can spread messages more efficiently to be the next hop. We proposed a moving scope aware routing protocol (MSAR). MSAR can detect similarity of moving scope between two nodes by comparing their common encounters without knowing geographical position by hardware. It forwards messages according to the comparison threshold. The simulation results show that MSAR can acquire a good packet delivery ratio and a relatively low delay with resources constraints. It can also improve routing efficiency and decrease network overhead.