ABSTRACT
In an opportunistic networking (OppNet), mobile nodes are able to communicate without an available end-to-end path or explicit knowledge of the network topology. Instead, mobile devices carry data until an opportunity arises to forward it to a peer via a short-range wireless link. This chapter discusses wireless mobile communication in general, before giving an overview of OppNets and their applications in the context of general wireless communications. It then considers the specific problem of efficient data delivery in OppNets, addressing the limitations of current approaches and what is needed to overcome these. In infrastructure-based communication, devices communicate with each other via a base station, which represents a key component of the network backbone (e.g., cellular network). Delay-tolerant networking (DTN) is another infrastructureless network paradigm that is capable of providing communication, relaxing the need for end-to-end connectivity. Finally, the chapter introduces repository-based data dissemination (RDD) as a proposed approach to improve data delivery in practical OppNets.
