Performance Comparison between Delay-Tolerant and Non-Delay-Tolerant Position-Based Routing Protocols in VANETs

Abstract

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are a new emerging recently developed advanced technology that allows a wide group of applications related to providing more safety on roads, more convenience for passengers, self-driven vehicles, and intelligent transportation systems (ITS). There are various routing protocol categories used in VANETs, like unicast, multicast, and broadcast protocols. In unicast position-based protocols, the routing decisions are based on the geographic position of the vehicles. This does not require establishment or maintenance of routes but needs location services to determine the position of the destination. Non-delay-tolerant network protocols (non-DTN), also identified as minimum delay protocols, are aimed at minimizing the delivery time of the information. Delay-tolerant protocols (DTN) are used in a variety of operating environments, including those that are subject to failures and interruptions and those with high delay, such as VANETs. This paper discusses the comparison between non-DTN and DTN routing protocols belonging to the unicast delay-tolerant position-based category. The comparison was conducted using the NS2 simulator, and the simulations of three non-DTN routing protocols and three DTN routing protocols were recorded. Simulation results show that the DTN routing protocols outperform in delivery ratio compared to the non-DTN routing protocols, but they lead to more average delay due to buffering, the processing algorithm, and priority calculation. In conclusion, non-DTN protocols are more suitable for the city environment since the distance between nodes is relatively smaller and the variations in the network topology are slower than they are on highways. On the other hand, DTN protocols are more suitable for highways due to the buffering of packets until a clear route to destination is available.