The shared wireless infostation model: a new ad hoc networking paradigm (or where there is a whale, there is a way)

In wireless ad hoc networks, capacity can be traded for delay. This tradeoff has been the subject of a number of studies, mainly concentrating on the two extremes: either minimizing the delay or maximizing the capacity. However, in between these extremes, there are schemes that allow instantiations of various degrees of this tradeoff. Infostations, which offer geographically intermittent coverage at high speeds, are one such an example. Indeed, through the use of the Infostation networking paradigm, the capacity of a mobile network can be increased at the expense of delay. We propose to further extend the Infostation concept by integrating it with the ad hoc networking technology. We refer to this networking model as the Shared Wireless Infostation Model (SWIM). SWIM allows additional improvement in the capacity-delay tradeoff through a moderate increase in the storage requirements. To demonstrate how SWIM can be applied to solve a practical problem, we use the example of a biological information acquisition system - radio-tagged whales - as nodes in an ad hoc network. We derive an analytical formula for the distribution of end-to-end delays and calculate the storage requirements. We further extend SWIM by allowing multi-tiered operation; which in our biological information acquisition system could be realized through seabirds acting as mobile data collection nodes.