Content-based routing in mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

The publish/subscribe model of communication provides sender/receiver decoupling and selective information dissemination that is appropriate for mobile environments characterized by scarce resources and a lack of fixed infrastructure. We propose and evaluate three content-based routing protocols: CBR is an adaptation of existing distributed publish/subscribe protocols for wired networks, FT-CBR extends CBR to provide fault-tolerance, and RAFT-CBR provides both fault-tolerance and reliability. Using network simulations we analyze the applicability and test the tradeoffs of these algorithms. We show that RAFT-CBR can guarantee 100% delivery to small groups, at the expense of transmission delay. CBR, with a low message overhead and low delay, is more suitable for larger groups at the expense of reliability. FT-CBR provides comparable delivery rates to RAFT-CBR, as well as low delay, at the expense of increased message cost.