Epidemic routing based on adaptive compression of vectors: efficient low-delay routing for opportunistic networks based on adaptive compression of vectors

In the study of routing in opportunistic networks, we find that there are some redundant overhead when the existing epidemic-based routing algorithms exchange summary vectors (SVs) and request vectors (RVs), and store SVs. To address this issue, we propose an efficient low-delay routing algorithm, epidemic routing based on adaptive compression of vectors (ERACV). Our proposed algorithm adaptively shortens the length of SVs and RVs by compressing the same bit sequences, optimizes the mechanism of exchanging SVs and RVs, and improves the order of transmitting data packets. Theoretical analysis verifies the effectiveness of ERACV in decreasing redundant overhead and packet delay. Simulation results show that ERACV reduces SVs' storage and control overheads by at least 18.0% and 35.8%, respectively, as well as decreases the average end-to-end delay of data packets by more than 2.5%, as compared with epidemic routing algorithm and message transmission control scheme. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.