CS595 S04- Delay Tolerant Networks

Faculty: Elizabeth Belding
Dates/Time: Mondays 10-11:30am
Location: CS Conference Room
Course ID: Contact Sandy Jacobs (jacobs@cs.ucsb.edu)

The design of the basic Internet protocols is based on a number of assumptions. These include small end to end RTT, the existence of some path between endpoints, and the perception of packet switching as the right abstraction for end to end communications. Today, however, new applications and networks are bringing new challenges to these assumptions and the architecture built on these assumptions. Some of these challenges are very large delays, intermittent and scheduled links, high link error rates and heterogeneous underlying network architectures and protocols in the protocol stack. Applications that may pose such challenges include spacecrafts, planetary/interplanetary, military/tactical, disaster response, underwater, satellite and various forms of large scale ad hoc networks. These applications, the impossibility of having a fixed wired Internet infrastructure everywhere, and the inclusion of mobility in most of these applications, make these challenges more difficult to surmount.

In the course of this seminar, we will investigate the new concept of Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN). DTN has developed as a research area in response to the disconnected operation characteristic of many of the applications described above. DTN tries to create a general architecture model that allows for long delays and disconnected network partitions in the delivery of data to destinations. During the seminar, we will study this architecture, and many of the protocols developed to ensure packet delivery in these networks.

Papers