Characterizing pairwise inter-contact patterns in delay tolerant networks

A good understanding of contact patterns in delay tolerant networks (DTNs) is essential for the design of effective routing schemes. Prior work has typically focused on intercontact time patterns in the aggregate. In this paper, we argue that pairwise inter-contact patterns are a more refined and efficient tool for characterizing DTNs. We provide a detailed statistical analysis of pairwise inter-contact times in three reference DTN data sets. We characterize heterogenities in inter-contact times, and find that the empirical distributions tend to be well fit by log-normal curves, with exponential curves also fitting a significant portion of the distributions.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: AUTONOMICS
• Authors: Vania Conan, Jeremie Leguay, Timur Friedman
• Keywords: AUTONOMICS 2007, Communications, Inter-contact Times, Intercontact Time Patterns, Pairwise Inter-contact Patterns