Disruption-tolerant networking protocols and services for disaster response communication

This thesis investigates, and contributes thereto, the promise of networking technologies and data processing techniques for efficient and effective information dissemination in the context of disasters. Disasters hinder usual communication experiences of people, and thereby calls for different approaches to meet communication needs. This is because traditional communication options, e.g., the Internet, may not be available after a disaster due to infrastructure damage or power outage. As a sign of hope, average individuals these days possess numerous wireless devices, such as smart mobile phones and tablets, with various device-to-device connectivity options, such as WiFi and Bluetooth. These devices with their capabilities can be harnessed in a disaster aftermath in the form of a disruption-tolerant network (DTN). DTN copes with intermittent connectivity among devices by using persistent storage and by transporting data packets exploiting mobility of nodes. Our dissertation efforts augment DTN literature with a new set of protocols and application services by leveraging specificities that arise in disaster context. From a boarder perspective, we divide our efforts into two main threads considering two key aspects of DTNs: i) mobile nodes and ii) moving content, that is, in DTNs node move and they generate moving content. Accordingly, in order to improve network efficiency and to design effective content dissemination protocols, we need to investigate mechanisms of two main categories: (i) exploiting physical mobility patterns of nodes, and (ii) exploiting logical properties of content generated by mobile nodes. Specifically, we leverage re- currence, as an example of exploiting mobility patterns of nodes, and propose a routing protocol, called inter-contact routing (ICR) that exploits recurrence in its core design. Later, we explore redundancy, as an example of exploiting properties of content, and propose redundancy reduction and in-network content prioritization techniques for different application services we build, namely PhotoNet, PhotoNet+ and diversity caching