Mobile Ad-Hoc and DTN Networks at IPCAS Lab

Intermittently-Connected Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (ICMANET) are one of the new areas in the field of wireless communication. Networks under this class are potentially deployed in challenged environments using isolated mobile devices with limited resources. They are emerging as a promising technology in applications such as in wildlife management, military surveillance, underwater networks, and vehicular networks. A ICMANET, also known as the Delay Tolerant Network (DTN), is typically different from traditional mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) in the sense that in the latter, communication between two nodes is possible at any time via a path of intermediate nodes although this path may vary with time. However, in an ICMANET, paths between two nodes are intermittent and communication between two nodes have to be established only by multihop paths that span over space and time. In other words, there is no end-to-end path between the two at any given instant. Enabling communications in such an intermittently connected network requires a departure from the traditional end-to-end communication model. Opportunistic networking is potentially an enabling technique for node-to-node communication between users that might never be connected through a complete path at a given time. Our work in this research is focused on obtaining fundamental limits, efficient algorithms and secure/reliable protocols for these networks.

 

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