Adaptive task-oriented message template for in-network processing

In disaster situations or on emergency terrains, Internet and Cloud access may be restricted; it may still be important to process complex resource-intensive tasks and to acquire distributed information for emergency response, using ad-hoc networks among, e.g., first responder mobile devices. Corresponding approaches towards coordination, resource utilization, and interoperability are still challenging. This paper introduces the concept of adaptive task-oriented message templates (ATMT) as a basis for overcoming these issues and for enabling cooperative in-network processing without additional synchronization overhead for mobile devices. An ATMT serves as a self-encapsulated message containing the operation chains that need to be executed as well as the required data. In order to address heterogeneity and interoperability issues, we integrate a lightweight ontology. Depending on the current utilization, devices can autonomously decide whether to participate in the network or not. We evaluate our approach in an indoor testbed with 8 wireless mesh nodes. The results confirm that our approach efficiently supports cooperation among heterogeneous devices towards utilizing available in-network resources while reducing network traffic.