TypeCast: Type-based routing in wireless Ad-hoc networks

Type-based communication is proposed as an effective paradigm to enable group communication in wireless ad-hoc networks (MANETs). In this paradigm, type is used as the fundamental construct for addressing and routing messages. Type hierarchies are used to dynamically control group size; and object-oriented principles such as subtyping and multiple inheritance are utilized to construct new groups from existing ones. We present the design of TypeCast, a routing protocol that directly supports type-based communication. TypeCast leverages efficiency and mobility management provided by MANET multicast protocols and extends them by adding a Bloom filter-based type encoding and routing mechanism. TypeCast is fully decentralized and supports subtyping and type-composition. We implement TypeCast on top of ODMRP and conduct a detailed performance and scalability study of TypeCast through simulation. The results show that TypeCast demonstrates good resiliency to mobility and group size. When the number of types in the network increases, TypeCast achieves good scalability thanks to type aggregation provided by Bloom filters.