Performance modeling of data transmission in maritime delay-tolerant-networks

In maritime networks, the communication links are characterized by high dynamics due to ship mobility and fluctuation of the sea surface. Some researchers have considered using Delay Tolerant Network (DTN) to improve the performance of data transmission in maritime environment. Most existing work on maritime DTNs usually uses simulation to evaluate the transmission performance in maritime DTNs. In this paper, we develop a theoretical model to analyze the performance of data transmission in maritime DTNs. We first construct a model to describe the ship encounter probability. Then, we use this model to analyze the data delivery ratio from ships in the seaway to the base station (BS) at coast. Based on the data of tracing the ships navigating in a realistic seaway, we develop a simulator and validate the theoretical models. In addition, by comparing the performance of DTN transmission protocol and traditional end-to-end transmission protocol, we validate that DTN protocol can effectively improve the performance of data transmission in maritime networks.