A token-based h-out of-k distributed mutual exclusion algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks

Distributed mutual exclusion is a challenging problem in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Due to the dynamic characteristics of MANETs, only a few algorithms have been proposed. Until recent years, these studies do not consider the more general h-out of-k mutual exclusion problem. In this paper we propose a distributed algorithm to solve the h-out of-k mutual exclusion problem in MANETs. The proposed algorithm has three benefits: (1) it improves the CS execution time by allowing at most k tokens to be concurrently dispatched; (2) it employs logical ring construction to adapt the token navigation to the system requirements; (3) it is designed with the consideration of the dynamical link formation characteristics in MANETs and is thus suitable for mobile environments. This paper shows its correctness. The proposed algorithm is also flexible for different token navigation policies to meet versatile MANET needs.