Dominating Set Based Support for Distributed Services in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Using distributed real-time applications in mobile environments, e.g., multiplayer games or collaborative working tools, is getting popular as mobile devices and wireless networks are becoming ubiquitous. Especially mobile networked gaming, in regard to the current trends, is considered by game developers, mobile device manufacturers and service providers to be a very attractive source of future revenue. Furthermore, the appearance and evolution of new communication paradigms like mobile ad hoc networking offer new ways and unique features for real-time mobile applications and even for mobile gaming. However, ad hoc networks reserve special challenges mainly due to their self-organized behavior and the resource constraints of the participating mobile devices. One of these challenges is how we can manage applications and support their smooth running in this dynamic and error prone environment. In this paper, we present our algorithm called PBS (Priority Based Selection) which is based on graph theory using Dominating Sets to give support to distributed services in mobile ad hoc networks. PBS computes an appropriate Dominating Set of the network graph in a fully distributed manner and it is the first approach in contrast to the existing algorithms that offers continuous maintenance of this set even in dynamically changing network topologies. To get an appreciation about PBS we discuss and analyze our algorithm, evaluate it via simulations and show how the Dominating Set created and maintained by applying PBS can be used in managing real-time multiplayer games in mobile ad hoc networks.