Probability-based controlled flooding in opportunistic networks

Opportunistic networks (Oppnet) are challenged networks in present wireless communication scenario. These networks are mainly applied to situations where a persistent end-to-end path between the source and the destination does not exist. Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) is mostly used to solve this end-toend path problem in such networks. Many routing protocols have been proposed in literature that consider various performance metrics such as delivery delay, packet delivery rate, hop count, among others. In this paper, a new routing protocol named as PRoWait has been designed which can overcome the shortcomings of the already existing protocols in Oppnets. The proposed protocol also incorporates the merits of existing protocol so that it can be reliable and efficient for the communication of pedestrians with handheld devices. Simulation results obtained for the proposed scheme show better performance as compared to the Porphet, Spray and Wait and Epidemic routing protocols in terms of packets delivery probability, overhead ratio, and hop count performance metrics.