Juan A. Fraire

Researcher in Space Networking and Informatics

Inria CONICET Saarland University

Publications Conference paper · Delay-tolerant networks · 2013

On the design of fair contact plans in predictable Delay-Tolerant Networks

Juan A. Fraire, Pablo G. Madoery, and Jorge M. Finochietto

IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE), pp. 1–7, 2013

Publisher’s version

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Abstract

Delay-Tolerant Networks (DTNs) have become a promising solution for challenged communication environments. As a result, different routing schemes have been investigated that take into account the time-evolving nature of the network topology. Among them, Contact Graph Routing (CGR) has been proposed for environments with predictable connectivity. In order to evaluate routing decisions, DTN nodes need to know the contact plan in advance, which comprises all communication links among nodes that will be available in the future. Since not all potential contacts can belong to the contact plan, its design requires analyzing conflicting contacts in order to select those that meet an overall goal. In this paper, we consider the design of contact plans that can maximize fairness requirements while still maximizing the overall capacity as well. To this end, we propose to formalize the problem by means of an optimization model and evaluate its performance in terms of different fairness metrics. Since this model can be computationally intractable for a large number of contacts, we also propose to tackle it as a matching problem, resulting in algorithms of polynomial complexity, and compare these results with those of the original model. We show that fairness can be properly modeled to design contact plans and that efficient algorithms do exist to compute these plans quite accurately.

Cite

DOI 10.1109/wisee.2013.6737548

BibTeX
@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/wisee/FraireMF13,
  author    = {Juan A. Fraire and Pablo G. Madoery and Jorge M. Finochietto},
  title     = {On the design of fair contact plans in predictable Delay-Tolerant Networks},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE)},
  pages     = {1--7},
  publisher = {{IEEE}},
  year      = {2013},
  doi       = {10.1109/wisee.2013.6737548}
}

More on delay-tolerant networks

  1. Design challenges in contact plans for disruption-tolerant satellite networks Juan A. Fraire and Jorge M. Finochietto IEEE Communications Magazine, 2015
    Abstract

    During the past 20 years, space communications technologies have shown limited progress in comparison to Internet-based networks on Earth. However, a brand new working group of the IETF with focus on DTN promises to extend today's Internet boundaries to embrace disruptive communications such as those seen in space networks. Nevertheless, several challenges need to be overcome before operative DTNs can be deployed in orbit. We analyze the state of the art of effective design, planning, and implementation of the forthcoming network communications opportunities (contacts). To this end, different modeling techniques, system constraints, selection criteria, and methods are reviewed and compared. Finally, we discuss the increasing complexity of considering routing and traffic information to enrich the planning procedure, yielding the need to implement a contact plan computation element to support space DTN operation.

  2. Routing-aware fair contact plan design for predictable delay tolerant networks Juan A. Fraire and Jorge M. Finochietto Elsevier Ad Hoc Networks, 2015
    Abstract

    Delay tolerant networks (DTNs) have become a promising solution for extending Internet boundaries to challenged environments such as satellite constellations. In this context, strategies to exploit scarce communication opportunities, while still considering device and application constraints, are still to be investigated to enable the actual deployment of these networks. In particular, the Contact Graph Routing (CGR) scheme has been proposed as it takes advantage of the contact plan, which comprises all future contacts among nodes. However, resource constraints can forbid the totality of these contacts to belong to the contact plan; thus, only those which together meet an overall goal shall be selected. In this article, we consider the problem of designing a contact plan that can provide fairness in link assignment and minimal all-to-all route delay; therefore, achieving equal contact opportunities while favoring end-to-end traffic latency. We formalize this by means of a multi-objective optimization model that can be computationally intractable for large topologies; thus, heuristic algorithms are proposed to compute the contact plan in practice. Finally, we analyze general results from these routines and discuss how they can used to provision valuable contact plans for real networks.

  3. Assessing Contact Graph Routing Performance and Reliability in Distributed Satellite Constellations Juan A. Fraire, Pablo G. Madoery, Scott C. Burleigh, Marius Feldmann, Jorge M. Finochietto, Amir Charif, Nacer-Eddine Zergainoh, and Raoul Velazco Journal of Computer Networks and Communications, 2017
    Abstract

    Existing Internet protocols assume persistent end-to-end connectivity, which cannot be guaranteed in disruptive and high-latency space environments. To operate over these challenging networks, a store-carry-and-forward communication architecture called Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) has been proposed. This work provides the first examination of the performance and robustness of Contact Graph Routing (CGR) algorithm, the state-of-the-art routing scheme for space-based DTNs. To this end, after a thorough description of CGR, two appealing satellite constellations are proposed and evaluated by means of simulations. Indeed, the DtnSim simulator is introduced as another relevant contribution of this work. Results enabled the authors to identify existing CGR weaknesses and enhancement opportunities.