A simulation based study of well known routing protocols for delay tolerant network

Delay tolerant networks are class of wireless ad-hoc networks in which end-to-end direct path between source and destination does not exist all the time. Conventional routing techniques are not feasible due to intermittent connectivity; therefore DTN emphasis on store and forward routing mechanism. DTN provides connectivity and communication in areas such as to extend the reach of internet to space, interconnect planets and underwater communication, which were considered to be unapproachable, distant and unfriendly. In this paper performance of some well known routing protocols for DTN is measured using different mobility models, number of nodes, transmission ranges and buffer sizes and present a comparative analysis in term of variety of parameters such as delivery ratio, overhead and latency. Based on the observations derived from simulation study, we also proposed a location based algorithm called "Grid based routing algorithm" for delay tolerant network. The goal of proposed algorithm is to provide prior knowledge of network to nodes, control flooding and number of transmissions in network. Grid based algorithm use concept of location information of nodes. By having location information messages are only delivered to the neighbor that is nearer and in direction towards to the destination.