QUICL Experiment Data

This repository contains all experiment results used in evaluating our Paper "QUICL: Disruption-tolerant Networking via a QUIC Convergence Layer," in which we present our novel, QUIC-based Convergence Layer for Bundle Protocol Version 7 compliant disruption-tolerant networks. Disruption-tolerant networks (DTNs) have a wide range of applications, including emergency situations where traditional communication infrastructure has been destroyed, remote rural deployments where communication infrastructure does not exist, and environmental monitoring in which animals are outfitted with sensors and transmit data whenever they come into contact with a base station. Using the de-facto DTN protocol standard, Bundle Protocol version 7 (BPv7), nodes communicate data using Convergence Layer Protocols (CLPs), which are broad abstractions for the underlying communication technology. BPv7 specifies two CLPs for DTNs: MTCP and TCPCL. However, they have distinct but equally undesirable flaws in functionality, complexity, performance, and reliability. QUICL is built on the QUIC transport protocol, which offers advantages over TCP-based protocols in a DTN setting. QUICL, in particular, improves congestion control, supports multiplexing, ensures reliable transmission, effectively manages unstable networks, and encrypts traffic by default. Our implementation, already merged upstream, is based on the free and open-source DTN7-go protocol suite and the QUIC-go library. Our experimental evaluation shows that even in tough situations, such as a bundle transmission over 63 hops with a packet loss of 30% on each hop, QUICL still delivers data, while most other DTN software/CLP combinations fail to transmit any data.