Evaluating the quality of service of Opportunistic Mobile Ad Hoc Network routing algorithms on real devices: A software-driven approach

Opportunistic Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) offer versatile solutions in contexts where the Internet is unavailable. These networks facilitate the transmission between endpoints using a store-carry-forward strategy, thereby allowing information to be stored during periods of disconnection. Consequently, selecting the next hop in the routing process becomes a significant challenge for nodes, particularly because of its impact on Quality of Service (QoS). Therefore, routing strategies are crucial in opportunistic MANETs; however, their deployment and evaluation in real scenarios can be challenging. In response to this context, this paper introduces a monitoring software-driven tool designed to evaluate the QoS of routing algorithms in physical opportunistic MANETs. The implementation and its components are detailed, along with a case study and the outcomes provided by an implementation of the proposed solution. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the implementation in enabling the analysis of routing protocols in real scenarios, highlighting significant differences with simulation results: mobility patterns in simulations tend to be inaccurate and overly optimistic, leading to a higher delivery probability and lower latency than what is observed in the real testbed.