Congestion and Flow Control at the Bundle Layer

If flow control is propagated backward from congested nodes toward traffic sources, then the flow control mechanism can be used as at least a partial solution to the problem of congestion as well.

 

A node must avoid discarding bundles for which it has accepted custody, and do so only as a last resort.

 

Determining when a node should engage in or cease to engage in custody transfers is a resource allocation and scheduling problem of current research interest.

 

In addition to the bundle layer mechanisms, a DTN node maybe able to avail itself of support from lower-layer protocols in affecting its own resource utilizaiton.