Multi-objective based deployment of throwboxes in Delay Tolerant Networks for the Internet of Things environment

Abstract

Recent advances in Delay Tolerant Networks find its way into the Internet of Things leading to a new framework known as DTN-IoT. Delay Tolerant Network models can be effectively implemented within the Internet of Things framework to overcome intermittent connectivity problems. This could be made possible by deploying a few strategic nodes called throwboxes, which act as intermediate relay nodes and increase communication opportunities among the nodes. Each throwbox is assumed to have a pre-specified transmission range. Increase in the connection opportunities in a throwbox assisted DTN-IoT environment depends mainly on the optimal deployment of throwboxes. The objective of this paper is to identify optimal deployment locations for placement of throwboxes in a throwbox assisted DTN-IoT environment by (1) maximizing the coverage of all the throwboxes (2) minimizing the average delay and (3) maximizing the delivery ratio among all the nodes. We use an efficient Multi-Objective Differential Evolution and a popular Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II for finding the optimal deployment location of throwboxes. The simulation results are compared to find a preferable strategy in throwbox deployment and enhance the performance of throwbox assisted DTN-IoT environment.