Content-based communication in disconnected mobile ad hoc networks

Applications dedicated to information sharing, news distribution, service advertisement and discovery all need a communication model where information flows towards any interested receiver, rather than towards specifically set destinations. Content-based communication is a style of communication that perfectly fits the needs of such applications. In this paper we address the problem of supporting content-based communication in partially or intermittently connected mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The protocol we designed leverages on the concepts of opportunistic networking and delay-tolerant networking in order to account for the absence of end-to-end connectivity in disconnected MANETs. Simulation results are presented, showing the efficiency of this protocol in a mobile ad hoc network composed of devices carried by pedestrians evolving in a campus environment.