REMA: A REsource MAnagement tool to improve the performance of vehicular delay-tolerant networks

Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks (VDTNs) architecture was proposed to overcome some constraints faced by vehicular environments, more precisely, the highly dynamic network topology, disruption, and the absence of an end-to-end path between source and destination. Then, it uses a store-carry-and-forward paradigm based on asynchronous and a bundle-oriented communication between network nodes. To deal with the specific characteristics of vehicular environments, routing protocols proposed for wireless and ad hoc network must be adapted or new routing protocols should be designed. Usually, they are responsible for the entire self-managing of the entire network, which in certain cases may comprise the network performance. This paper presents and describes a resource management tool, called REMA, that aims to support routing protocols to minimize the consumption of network resources contributing to increase the overall network performance. This is achieved by a sophisticated scheduling approach that forwards bundles taking into account the best interests of a VDTN network. Performance evaluation studies conducted through simulation shown that REMA decreases the amount of wasted resources significantly, increases the bundle delivery ratio, and decreases the overhead ratio compared to scenarios where no additional action is performed to deal with resources consumption.