ML-MaxProp: Bridging Machine Learning and Delay-Tolerant Routing for Resilient Post-Disaster Communication

TL;DR

ML-MaxProp enhances delay-tolerant routing in disaster scenarios by integrating machine learning with traditional protocols, significantly improving message delivery and network resilience under challenging conditions.

Contribution

This paper introduces ML-MaxProp, a novel hybrid routing protocol that uses supervised machine learning to adaptively improve relay selection in DTNs during disasters.

Findings

Higher delivery probability compared to baseline protocols

Lower message latency in simulations

Reduced network overhead under resource constraints

Abstract

In disaster-stricken and large-scale urban emergency scenarios, ensuring reliable communication remains a formidable challenge, as collapsed infrastructure, unpredictable mobility, and severely constrained resources disrupt conventional networks. Delay-Tolerant Networks (DTNs), though resilient through their store-carry-forward paradigm, reveal the fundamental weaknesses of classical protocols - Epidemic, Spray-and-Wait, and MaxProp - when confronted with sparse encounters, buffer shortages, and volatile connectivity. To address these obstacles, this study proposes ML-MaxProp, a hybrid routing protocol that strengthens MaxProp with supervised machine learning. By leveraging contextual features such as encounter frequency, hop count, buffer occupancy, message age, and time-to-live (TTL), ML-MaxProp predicts relay suitability in real time, transforming rigid heuristics into adaptive intelligence. Extensive simulations in the ONE environment using the Helsinki SPMBM mobility model show that ML-MaxProp consistently surpasses baseline protocols, achieving higher delivery probability, lower latency, and reduced overhead. Statistical validation further shows that these improvements are both significant and robust, even under highly resource-constrained and unstable conditions. Overall, this work shows that ML-MaxProp is not just an incremental refinement but a lightweight, adaptive, and practical solution to one of the hardest challenges in DTNs: sustaining mission-critical communication when infrastructure collapses and every forwarding decision becomes critical.