| Delay/Disruption Tolerant Networks (DTNs) refer to a class of networks that experience intermittent connectivity and frequent partitions. These networks emerge in a variety of applications such as space communication and disaster rescue. In such network environments, the end-to-end paths are either unstable or unlikely to be able to set up. This difficulty imposes a direct challenge to the routing in the DTNs. The existing network architectures and the corresponding routing protocols are inefficient to support communication in DTNs because they are based on the assumption that end-to-end paths exist between endpoints. Therefore, new routing technologies need to be developed for DTNs.;In this thesis, we focus on routing protocol design for DTNs. We make the following contributions to area of routing design for DTNs: (1) We propose a context-aware unicast routing protocol, which adapts its behavior depends on the network information (e.g. node density and node location) to provide efficient routing for DTNs. (2) We extend the context-aware unicast routing protocol to a multicast routing protocol, which outperforms other existing multicast routing protocols for DTNs through simulations. (3) We propose two interdomain unicast protocols and study the impact of intradomain routing on the interdomain routing. (4) We propose an interdomain multicast routing protocol for DTNs which is the first interdomain multicast routing. Our interdomain multicast routing protocol performs well in different network scenarios.;In summary, this thesis provides some insight into the design of robust and efficient routing approaches for DTNs. |
