Two Hops or More: On Hop-Limited Search in Opportunistic Networks

While there is a drastic shift from host-centric networking to content-centric networking, how to locate and retrieve the relevant content efficiently, especially in a mobile network, is still an open question. Mobile devices host increasing volume of data which could be shared with the nearby nodes in a multi-hop fashion. However, searching for content in this resource-restricted setting is not trivial due to the lack of a content index, as well as, desire for keeping the search cost low. In this paper, we analyze a lightweight search scheme, hop-limited search, that forwards the search messages only till a maximum number of hops, and requires no prior knowledge about the network. We highlight the effect of the hop limit on both search performance (i.e., success ratio and delay) and associated cost along with the interplay between content availability, tolerated waiting time, network density, and mobility. Our analysis, using the real mobility traces, as well as synthetic models, sh...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2015
• Where: MSWIM
• Authors: Suzan Bayhan, Esa Hyytiä, Jussi Kangasharju, Jörg Ott
• Keywords: Modeling And Simulation, MSWIM 2015