A cross-layer approach to service discovery and selection in MANETs

When a service is offered by multiple servers in a mobile ad hoc network (MANETs), the manner in which clients and servers are paired together, referred to as service selection, is crucial to network performance. Good service selection groups clients with nearby servers, localizing communication, which in turn reduces inter-node interference and allows for multiple concurrent transmissions in different parts of the network. Although much previous research has concentrated on service discovery in MANETs, not much effort has gone into understanding the effects of service selection. This paper demonstrates that service selection in MANETs has profound implications for network performance. Specifically, we show that effective service selection can improve network throughput by up to 400%. We show that to maximize performance service selection decisions need to be continuously reassessed to offset the effects of topology changes. We argue that effective service selection in MANETs requires a cross-layer approach that integrates service discovery and selection functionality with network ad hoc routing mechanisms. The cross-layer approach leverages existing routing traffic and allows clients to switch to better servers as network topology changes