NWC: Node Weight Computation in MANETs

As mobile devices are getting more and more ubiquitous, the paradigm of wireless Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) is gaining popularity. Especially distributed real-time applications are attractive for their users in this environment. To help manage these applications in MANETs, previously we developed a distributed algorithm called PBS (priority based selection). PBS divides the ad hoc network into zones and selects and maintains a set of nodes, which act as zone servers, to manage these zones. The zone server selection applies node priority comparison, which reflects the node´s capabilities to act as zone server. In this paper, we propose a mechanism called NWC (node weight computation) to be applied in the node priority comparison of PBS. NWC computes the node weight, on which the priority comparison is based, as the weighted linear combination of the node parameters. The parameter weights are extracted from the so-called service profile which reflects the characteristics and requirements of the given service. To create this profile we developed a procedure using factorial design via simulations and multi-objective optimization. Our NWC mechanism, applying the created service profile, assigns the highest priorities to the best suited nodes for a given service type and thus designates the most powerful nodes to be selected as zone servers by PBS. Moreover, the weight computation of NWC can be used by other clustering algorithms in MANETs, too.