Mobile-relay Forwarding in Opportunistic Networks

Opportunistic networks are one of the most interesting extensions of the legacy Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) concept. Legacy MANETs are composed by mobile nodes that collaboratively setup a network plane by running a given routing protocol. Therefore, the - sometimes implicit - assumption behind MANETs is that the network is well connected, and nodes' disconnection is an exception to deal with. Most notably, if the destination of a given message is not connected to the network when the message is generated, then that message is dropped after a short time (i.e., the destination is assumed not to exist). Opportunistic networks are mobile wireless networks in which the presence of a "continuous" path between a sender and a destination is not assumed. Sender and destination nodesmay never be connected to the network at the same time.