Leveraging Social Networks for P2P Content-Based File Sharing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Current P2P file sharing methods in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) can be classified into three groups: flooding-based, advertisement-based and social contact-based. The first two groups of methods can easily generate high overhead and low scalability, and the third group fails to consider the social interests (content) of mobile nodes, which otherwise can improve file searching efficiency. In this paper, we propose a P2P content-based file sharing system for MANETs. The system uses an interest extraction algorithm to derive a node's interests from its files for complex queries. For efficient file searching, it groups common-interest nodes that frequently meet with each other as communities. Further, it takes advantage of node mobility by designating stable nodes, which has frequent contact with community members, as community coordinators for intra-community searching, and highly-mobile nodes as community ambassadors for inter-community searching. An interest-oriented file searching scheme further enhances the file searching success rate. We first deployed our system on the real-world GENI Orbit testbed with a real trace and then conducted experiment on the ns2 simulator with both real trace and simulated disconnected and connected MANET scenario. The test results show that our system significantly lowers transmission cost and improves file searching success rate compared to current methods.