Augmenting coverage in a cellular network with DTN routing

Cellular networks provide a range of communication services and are the principal wireless technology for domestic and business users. However, in cellular networks, an accident or a storm or a malicious action may cause a base station to fail and so be unable to provide radio coverage to sections of users. Such base station failures also might result in user congestion to nearby operational base stations. Delay Tolerate Network (DTN) is used here to mitigate these problems. DTN enables user devices to self-organize to connect to functional base stations or other users through multiple hops. This paper augments DTN routing using geographic routing and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) methods to enhance user to base station connection and network load balancing. Three DTN routing protocols: Epidemic, Binary Spray and Wait, and PRoPHET are considered in this paper. Compared to the geographic method described, the ACO does not require users and base stations to provide their geographic location, which is more appropriate to the context in which such an approach might be applied.