Efficient peer-to-peer file sharing using network coding in MANET

Mobile peer-to-peer (P2P) systems have recently got in the limelight of the research community that is striving to build efficient and effective mobile content addressable networks. Along this line of research, we propose a new peer-to-peer file sharing protocol suited to mobile ad hoc networks (MANET). The main ingredients of our protocol are network coding and mobility assisted data propagation, i.e., single-hop communication. We argue that network coding in combination with single-hop communication allows P2P file sharing systems in MANET to operate in a more efficient manner and helps the systems to deal with typical MANET issues such as dynamic topology and intermittent connectivity as well as various other issues that have been disregarded in previous MANET P2P researches such as addressing, node/user density, non-cooperativeness, and unreliable channel. Via simulation, we show that our P2P protocol based on network coding and single-hop communication allows shorter file downloading delays compared to an existing MANET P2P protocol.