CT 1.5.5 Study of Wireless Epidemic Spread in Dynamic Human Connectivity Traces

Introduction Increasing numbers of mobile computing devices form dynamic networks in daily life. In such environments, nodes (i.e. laptops, PDAs, smart phones) are sparsely distributed, forming a network which is often partitioned due to geographical separation or node movement. We envision a new communication paradigm using dynamic interconnectedness between people leading towards a world where digital traffic flows as people encounter each other [7]. Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) [3] aim at supporting such network environments. Efficient forwarding algorithms for such networks are emerging, mainly based on epidemic protocols where messages are simply flooded when nodes encounter each other. Epidemic information diffusion is highly robust against disconnection, mobility and node failures, and it is simple, decentralized and fast. However, careful tuning to achieve reliability and minimize network load is essential. Thus, it is important to understand not only the physical topology but also the underlying logical network structure.