Facilitating match-making service in ad hoc and sensor networks using pseudo quorum

In a match-making system, sources (producers) advertise generated data without any particular destination in mind. Destinations (consumers) are determined based on their interests (via subscriptions) in receiving the produced data. Advertisements and subscriptions are matched by the underlying network service, so that routing is based on the content of messages. We propose to facilitate a match-making capability in ad hoc and sensor networks by adapting the idea of a quorum system. A quorum system is formed by organizing nodes into subsets called quorums, where every two quorums intersect and no quorum includes another quorum. To accommodate node mobility and network scale, we propose that producers and consumers systematically forward their advertisement and subscription messages to form ´pseudo´ quorums, where they are matched at intersecting nodes. Simulation results show that the pseudo quorum based matchmaking system achieves a very high matching rate with much less messaging overhead as compared to that of event and query flooding.