Searching for content in mobile DTNs

Abstract

Delay-tolerant networking (DTN) provides a platform for applications in environments where end-to-end paths may be highly unreliable or do not exist at all. In many applications such as distributed wikis or photo sharing, users need to be able to find content even when they do not know an unambiguous identifier. In order do bring these applications to the domain of DTNs, a search scheme is required that works despite the unreliable network conditions. In this paper, we introduce a search scheme that makes no assumptions about the underlying routing protocols and the format of search requests. We evaluate different algorithms for forwarding and terminating search queries, using simulations with different classes of DTN routing protocols for different mobility scenarios.