On Message Fragmentation, Coding and Social Networking in Intermittently Connected Networks

An intermittently connected network (ICN) is defined as a mobile network that uses cooperation between nodes to facilitate communication. This cooperation consists of nodes carrying messages from other nodes to help deliver them to their destinations. An ICN does not require an infrastructure and routing information is not retained by the nodes. While this may be a useful environment for message dissemination, it creates routing challenges. In particular, providing satisfactory delivery performance while keeping the overhead low is difficult with no network infrastructure or routing information. This dissertation explores solutions that lead to a high delivery probability while maintaining a low overhead ratio. The efficiency of message fragmentation in ICNs is first examined. Next, the performance of the routing is investigated when erasure coding and network coding are employed in ICNs. Finally, the use of social networking in ICNs to achieve high routing performance is considered. The aim of this work is to improve the better delivery probability while maintaining a low overhead ratio. Message fragmentation is shown to improve the CDF of the message delivery probability compared to existing methods. The use of erasure coding in an ICN further improve this CDF. Finally, the use of network coding was examined. The advantage of network coding over message replication is quantified