Service discovery in On-demand Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

Abstract

Discovery of services and other named resources is expected to be a crucial feature for the usability of mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs). Different types of service discovery architectures are distinguished by the extent that service coordinators (SCs) are implemented in the network. A service coordinator is a node that holds a central repository for caching attributes and bindings for services of servers located in its neighborhood.

In this thesis, we evaluate the performance of different service discovery architectures in terms of service availability, message overhead and latency on reactively routed MANETs. We also discuss different methods that can be used to enhance the service availability and their pros and cons. We have, in this thesis, especially focused on the trade-off between the service availability and the message overhead.

This thesis will also demonstrate the benefits of combining the service discovery with the route discovery, especially on on-demand MANETs where reactive routing protocols are being used.