Information Density Estimation for Content Retrieval in MANETs

The paper focuses on a cooperative environment in wireless ad hoc networks, where mobile nodes share information in a peer-to-peer fashion. Nodes follow a pure peer-to-peer approach (i.e., without the intervention of servers), thus requiring an efficient query/response propagation algorithm to prevent network congestion. The main contribution of the paper is the proposal of a novel solution, called Eureka, that identifies the regions of the network where the required information is more likely to be stored and steers the queries toward those regions. To discriminate among regions, the concept of information density is introduced, along with a procedure that allows nodes its estimation. Eureka does not require the use of satellite positioning systems, and proves to be very effective in both vehicular and pedestrian environments.