Routing protocols for mobile social networks achieving trade-off among energy consumption, delivery ratio and delay

So far, the routing protocols designed for mobile social networks (MSNs) have mainly focused on the delivery ratio and delay, but rarely considered the energy consumption for message delivery. This paper addresses the routing protocols for MSNs, which are capable of achieving the trade-off among energy consumption, delivery ratio and delay, and hence is referred to as the EC/DR/D trade-off. We first provide an approach for implementing the EC/DR/D trade-off. Then, we extend three existing routing protocols, namely, the social contact probability assisted routing (SCPR), Bubble and the Prophet protocols, correspondingly to three routing protocols that are able to achieve EC/DR/D trade-off. These routing protocols are referred to as the ESCPR, EBubble and the EProphet protocols, respectively. Finally, we study the performance of these routing protocols based on a community-assisted mobility model. Our studies show that the extended routing protocols can allow us to attain the required EC/DR/D trade-off according to practical requirements.