An Energy-efficient Routing Algorithm for Disruption Tolerant Networks

In Disruption Tolerant Networks (DTN), information is exchanged between mobile nodes with the same transmit power. It is an energy-consuming process and highlights the need for energy-efficient power control mechanisms. If the transmit power of nodes is too low, they might miss many of the opportunities of transmission. On the other hand, high transmit power is energy inefficient. In this paper, we propose ERBC (Energy-efficient Routing algorithm Based on Cross-layer design), an energy-efficient routing algorithm based on cross-layer design. Instead of using fixed transmit power, ERBC dynamically chooses the transmit power using both the cross-lay design and the RSSI technology. Meanwhile, ERBC broadcast data packets partially in order to enhance the delivery ratio. Through simulation, we demonstrate that ERBC can reduce 37% for per-bit energy consumption than that in basic epidemic routing protocol.