Middleware support for service discovery in special operations mobile ad hoc networks

Technology can play a significant role in the management and coordination activities of special operations such as emergency response, military combat missions, forest firefighting, etc. Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) can be used quite effectively to manage resource sharing in such operations due to their flexibility and ease of establishment. The concept of service discovery has some appealing characteristics and features that can be adopted and adapted for the nature and needs of these applications. In this study, we present the middleware architecture of a service discovery and allocation system that we propose for the applications of special operations. The main purpose of the proposed system is to locate, reserve and assign a certain service to the party that is in need of this service, with little or no human intervention. The concerned service could be medics, equipment, ambulances, etc. The network participants are divided into service providers, service requestors and anchor nodes. The anchor nodes are the ones which are used to manage resource discovery and allocation. The proposed middleware takes into consideration the classification of these network nodes on the basis of their function. Based on the classification of a certain node, only the middleware modules relevant to its function are activated. We describe the design of this middleware in detail. We also experiment with the proposed technique and present some results that show its capabilities from different performance perspectives. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.