Information Dissemination Network for Dynamic Target Location Pursuit

We study a network structure for efficient information dissemination that leverages location-based real-time applications operating in a distributed system. Gossip-based information dissemination is a promising method for a large-scale system to keep nodes in the network quickly updated with new information. The information dissemination efficiency depends strongly on the underlying network structure, so it is important to analyze how the network structure is optimized to achieve agile information dissemination, especially for time-sensitive applications, e.g., for dynamic pursuit of a moving target that requires frequent information updating. To this end, we construct a continuous-space network model extended from Kleinberg´s small-world model so that it is applicable to location-based services. Analytical and simulation-based study shows that excellent information dissemination efficiency is achieved when the shortcuts overlaying a uniform cluster network are created nearly uniformly to nodes at all distance scales. We apply our model to the dynamic pursuit problem where a pursuer searches for a moving target. Monte-Carlo simulation shows that the network with well-structured shortcuts surpasses other types of networks in finding a moving target because the pursuer can steadily approach the target regardless of its location, and the network structure greatly influences the dynamic search ability in distributed systems.