NeTS: Small: New models and techniques for efficient communication in smartphone ad-hoc networks

University Of Massachusetts Boston, Dorchester MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project aims to develop two new smartphone-based infrastructure models to support applications that require interaction and communication in the proximity without the support of the Internet. It is motivated by the fact that ad-hoc networks formed by a collection of smartphones can help improve the current location-based services, propel new applications, and enhance the wireless infrastructures. In this project, one model harnesses the heterogeneous radio interfaces to improve bulk data transfer while the other model explores a new passive communication approach for disseminating short messages such as Tweets and Facebook messages. Both new models target on reducing the energy cost and network overhead which are critical to deploying smartphone ad-hoc networks. If successful, this project will result in two new mobile ad-hoc network architectures and a suite of protocols built on them. It is expected to have immediate impact on the research community and industry. The results of this project will further broaden the mobile application scope and may inspire developers to create innovative services based on local data communication. Specifically, this project addresses the high-cost issue in path establishment and path recovery in traditional mobile ad-hoc networks. The first new model integrates a long-range radio into a smartphone to carry out control and management packets while payload data are still transferred over regular radios such as WiFi and Bluetooth. A new routing protocol will be developed based on this dual radio setting to improve the efficiency. The second new model uses the mandatory 'peer discovery' function in Bluetooth and WiFi-Direct protocols to disseminate short messages among the smartphones in the proximity. The cost for establishing and maintaining wireless links is negligible, and the feature of fetching messages from multiple nearby devices is desirable for the applications that spread messages in the proximity. This project will develop an appropriate strategy for each smartphone to receive and dispatch messages with the objective of conserving the energy cost and improving the message delivery ratio.