Buffer Management Techniques in Delay Tolerant Networks: A Comprehensive Survey

Abstract: This paper aims to provide a comprehensive study of the underlying buffer management issues and challenges in developing an efficient DTN routing protocol. Our aim is to begin with the discussion of buffer management schemes in DTNs in full generality and then dive in-depth, covering aspects of buffer management. Buffer strategies are used to determine which packets need to be forwarded or dropped. This paper will focus on the variety of buffer management strategies available, providing a comprehensive survey and analysis. We have also conducted an empirical analysis using simulator ONE to analyze the buffering time in various primary routing protocols such as Epidemic, Spary-and-wait (SNW), Prophet, Encounter based Routing (EBR) and Inter-Contact Delay and Location Information based Routing (ICDLIR). For these algorithms, it is also observed how varying the buffer size effect the delivery probability and overhead.