Copyright © 2004 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Service Location Protocols for Mobile Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract: As service-oriented networks are essential in our lives, service location, access and provisioning over wired or wireless networks govern users ’ satisfaction. While they are well understood over cellular networks, it is not clear for ad hoc networks. We therefore present several approaches on service location in such networks: distributed broadcast query, query via service coordinators, and a hybrid combination. Particularly, we evaluated these approaches in terms of service availability and control overhead over variable network sizes and mobility scenarios. Simulation results showed that the distributed query approach suffered from high control overhead despite its robustness and tolerance towards mobility. The service coordinator (SC) based approach, however, resulted in a more scalable architecture that tends to separate the network into different service areas. This has important implications on future “mobile marketplace ” and services to mobile users. Finally, the hybrid approach provided greater flexibility and robustness to the SC-based approach with its scoped broadcast to limit the overhead