An Efficient Message Routing Algorithm Using Overhearing in Community Opportunistic Networks

For the Opportunistic networks composed by mobile devices, which carried by people and have short-range wireless communication interface, its nodes movement reflects the characteristics of community. When nodes use wireless communication interface to broadcast information, other nodes within its sending range can overhear the sending information. The characteristic of broadcast is rarely used by the routing algorithms of the community opportunistic networks, so we present an efficient message routing algorithm using overhearing in community opportunistic networks. The algorithm divides the message routing into two phases: entering the destination community of message and reaching its destination node. The algorithm selects relay nodes for message based on the community attribute of nodes. At the same time, each node uses the overhearing information to advance the progress of message forwarding and clear redundant messages copies. Experiments result shows that it improves message delivery ratio effectively and reduce network overhead compared with some classic opportunistic networks routing algorithms.