P2P Information Lookup, Collection, and Distribution in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

Abstract

The most important characteristics of mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) such as broadcast and multihop communication, limited resources (particularly energy) and physical proximity are often ignored in solutions being proposed for information lookup and distribution. Thus, many lookup approaches rely on unstructured algorithms using flooding techniques, while content distribution mechanisms frequently generate inefficient multicast trees without considering the presence of nodes that are involved only as relays and are not interested in the distributed content. In this chapter, the authors present a multicast algorithm designed to build efficient multicast trees in MANETs that strive to limit the number of relay nodes and transmissions required. This distribution infrastructure relies on a lightweight distributed hash table (DHT) specifically adapted to MANETs, and exploits the physical proximity of nodes and broadcast communication. The algorithmic efficiency and scalability are evaluated by means of simulations for various network sizes and configurations.