Information epidemics control for data delivery in opportunistic networks

Data delivery in opportunistic networks requires robustness and resiliency due to the mobility and the probabilistic propagation of the channels caused by fading. The store-carry-forward (SCF) based routing has become a conventional data forwarding mechanism in such networks. Due to the information dissemination nature of SCF routing, information epidemics control has become a necessary mechanism in SCF routing to prevent from the epidemics outbreak. In this paper, we propose an information epidemics control approach which provides earlier control signal distribution time and faster recovery rate for the data delivery solutions in opportunistic networks. We study the effectiveness of the proposed scheme based on the susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) model and prove that it provides a higher vaccination rate and recovery rate. Due to the flexibility of the proposed scheme, it can be integrated with any SCF-based routing. We integrate the proposed vaccinating mechanism in a SCF-based routing and show that a robust data delivery is achieved and a substantial amount of unnecessary transmissions are well deterred.