Modeling Opportunistic Data Delivery in Dynamic Wireless Networks

In this work we examine data delivery in dynamic wireless ad hoc networks that exchange packets opportunistically. Legacy mobile ad hoc network (MANET) protocols send packets along a predetermined path between a source and a destination. Node mobility, however, may create network partitions and a multi-hop link may not be present at the onset. Such node mobility may instead be leveraged to create an asynchronous path between a source and destination enabling opportunistic message exchange. In this work we propose an analytic model for this data exchange by defining a node's probability to forward packets to an encountered node. Drawing on results from mobility studies, we derive the statistics on the packet exchange and packet delivery performance for opportunistic networks. This model is validated for several simulation scenarios. The work provides a foundation for a one-to-one performance comparison of existing opportunistic forwarding protocols.