Topology Refresh Data Forwarding Protocol for
Opportunistic Networks
Abstract ⎯ Consider the opportunistic network application
scenario in which mobile node users socialize with nearby users
of common interest, but there exists no pre-established session
by which users register or de-register their presence. As nodes
are dynamically joining and leaving the network, how a node
discovers any newly joined nodes or knows when to release
conversations from nodes who have left the network. In this
paper, we propose to build a complete topology of end-to-end
paths and periodically refresh it, to thereby erase all the
connectivity and node position history, to adapt to the dynamic
changing nature of opportunistic networks. We call it Topology
Refresh Protocol (TRP). TRP integrates the solution to the
questions with data forwarding. It is lightweight and efficient
that requires no path break detection and repair as required by
on-demand routing, no complex route calculations as in
probabilistic routing, and no duplication of messages as used in
the class of epidemic routing. We studied the TRP performance
in terms of overhead, delay, and acceptance rate by computer
simulations and found that TRP outperforms the AODV and
ERP protocols.