Query-driven data collection and data forwarding in intermittently connected mobile sensor networks

In sparse and intermittently connected Mobile Sensor Networks (MSNs), the base station cannot easily get the data objects acquired by the mobile sensors in the field. When users query the base station for specific data objects, the base station may not have received the necessary data objects to answer the queries. In this paper, we propose to use a Mobile Data Collector (MDC) to collect the data objects from the mobile sensors that the base station needs for answering queries. To facilitate the MDC's data collection, we design a location-based data forwarding protocol that exploits the location metadata of data objects and uses caching to improve data availability in the MSNs. Results of performance study show that our solution can reduce query response times on the base station.