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Unlike normal wireless ad hoc networks, end-to-end connection may not exist in DTNs Thus, the Message Ferrying (MF) scheme has been proposed as a strategy for providing connectivity in disruption tolerant network(DTN)s, where a set of nodes called ferries are responsible for carrying messages for all nodes in the networks. In such storeand- forward networks, buffers at ferry and regular nodes become critical resources and need to be allocated fairly among different users. In this paper, we propose a max-min fairness model for a DTN with a message ferry. Based on this model, we propose a buffer allocation scheme that can achieve fairness among different sessions. We also design an integrated buffer and routing management scheme called buffer efficient routing scheme (BERS). Via simulations, we demonstrate that our fair buffer allocation scheme assigns buffers fairly to different sessions. Our simulation studies also show that BERS can achieve higher session throughput and lower packet delivery latency than the only-store-and-forward routing scheme that is typically used in a message ferry system.

Keywords: disruption tolerant network, buffer management, ferry route design, performance evaluation, fairness

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Received September 15, 2006; accepted February 6, 2007.
Communicated by Ten H. Lai, Chung-Ta King and Jehn-Ruey Jiang.