Dynamically Configurable Membership Support for Dependable Applications in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are characterised by the absence of a centralised infrastructure and are formed by heterogeneous mobile nodes. Power consumption and bandwidth are basic limitations for these systems. Dependability solutions and their underlying services, such as group membership can have a very large impact on both performance and power consumption in such an environment. Nevertheless, services can behave very differently in different mobility, system size and signal strength scenarios, and can be fine tuned considerably. Static configuration may not be sufficient in environments as dynamic as MANETs, as the characteristics of the deployment scenario might vary during run time. In this paper we present a membership estimation service that is capable to react to network changes and conditions and adapt its parameters to obtain better performance, both in terms of power consumption and in terms of quality of information. Furthermore, we provide the result of performance experiments comparing a previous static approach with the improved dynamic system.