Localized Probabilistic Algorithm for Efficient Information Dissemination in Ad Hoc Networks

Ad hoc networks are autonomous dynamic networks composed of mobile devices like personal digital assistants (PDA) for instance. In such mobile networks, lack of infrastructure leads to non trivial information discovery and dissemination. A scheme in which a unique object centralizes information is not efficient for many reasons. Indeed, it is difficult to maintain a centralized structure because of network topology variation. In this report, we propose a probabilistic algorithm to satisfactorily distribute an information token among nodes forming the network, that is to say only a given number of nodes will memorize. We do not consider a particular type of information and we discuss on how efficiently realize the dissemination. This kind of dissemination would find application in service discovery where mobiles may need to access services or in routing for example