Hiker Mobility Analysis for Parameter Setting in a CSMA-based DTN

YushanNet is for hiker tracking in the Yushan national park. YushanNet which is a delay-tolerant wireless sensor network will apply for mountain rescuing and tourist information. There are contention-free (TDMA) and contention-based (CSMA) MACs for YushanNet. Our research addresses the CSMA.
The effectiveness of parameter settings is an important issue. Our methodology is using hiker mobility analysis to effectively minimize the range of parameter settings. We use GPS loggers to collect hikers’ track data for mobility analysis. The results of trace analysis showed that the most of encounters took place at around noon and near the West Peak Pavilion. The encounter duration was short, and the hiker encountered another hiker at frequency of 30~300 seconds. In addition, the encounter neighbors of nodes varied from time to time, and the member nodes of network were variable.
Simulated results show that it is feasible to minimize the range of parameter settings via mobility analysis. Although the results between our methodology and common sense inference are close, our methodology can find some mobility characteristics for optimizing hiker-aware CSMA in future.