Abstract: | In an intermittently connected mobile network, a complete routing path from a source to a destination cannot be guaranteed most of the time. Therefore, traditional routing methods for mobile ad hoc networks are not applicable in such a network. Current approaches for intermittently connected mobile networks are primarily based on redundant transmission and single-copy opportunistic routing. However, they incur either high overhead due to excessive transmissions, or long delay due to incorrect path choices during forwarding. In this paper, we propose a direction-based geographic (DIG) routing scheme for intermittently connected mobile networks. Relying on geographic location information, the packets are routed in a path approximately to the shortest path from the source node to the destination, which significantly reduces the overhead in redundant transmission and decreases the transmission delay in the single-copy opportunistic routing. Theoretical analysis and trace-driven experimental results show that DIG provides low transmission delay with low overhead in comparison with the schemes in the redundant transmission and single-copy opportunistic routing. |