Efficient Routing For Intermittently Connected Mobile Ad hoc Network

A Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of mobile nodes that can communicate with each other using Multihop wireless links without using any fixed infrastructure and centralized controller. Communication links are susceptible to frequent failures due to intervening objects, which can cause intermittent connectivity. Due to Intermittent connectivity, there is no end-to-end path exists between source and destination all the time. Existing ad hoc routing protocols unable to deliver packets in the presence of a network partition between source and destination since they are designed for network where end to end connectivity exists between nodes. To deal with such networks researchers have suggested to use flooding-based routing schemes and Message Ferrying Schemes. Flooding scheme is not suitable if partitions last for a long duration of time. Message Ferry distributes messages between nodes which are located in different partitions which may be disconnected. Ferry moves around a fixed path for providing regular connectivity in a disconnected network. But this scheme needs huge buffer space and also online collaboration between Ferry and other nodes in the network. With this in mind, a new routing scheme with two types of Ferries and Gateways has been proposed. This scheme improves delivery rate and delay and it does not need any online collaboration between ferry and mobile nodes.