Improving Opportunistic Networks by Leveraging Device-to-Device Communication
Radu‐Corneliu Marin, Radu‐Ioan Ciobanu, Ciprian Dobre · IEEE Communications Magazine · 2017
Several popular low-level device-to-device techniques, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct, are seen today as enablers for 5G mobile networks, as the communication infrastructure for future Internet of Things systems. However, most of these technologies do not support direct over-the- air communication between end users/devices. Opportunistic networks propose the use of delay-tolerant and wireless communication over such technologies, toward routing messages between end users. In our previous studies, we have shown how taking advantage of the existing Wi-Fi infrastructure leads to high hit rates and low latency based on the increased wireless range coupled with high bandwidth. In this article, we extend our proposed architecture for covering infrastructure-less environments through a novel mechanism that allows connecting peers through Wi-Fi Direct in a seamless and secure fashion. Furthermore, we emulate real-life user traces to empirically prove that our solution improves hit rate by 13 percent without impacting battery life.