Combining Infrastructure and Ad hoc Collaboration For Data Management in Mobile Wireless Networks

A mobile ad-hoc network is an autonomous system of mobile routers that are self-organizing and completely decentralized with no requirements for dedicated infrastructure support. However, such infrastructure in terms of base stations is available in many popular areas already. These base stations often offer high-speed data connectivity to a wired network. In this paper, we describe an approach where a combination of infrastructure and ad hoc communication can be used to better manage the data needs of a mobile wireless device. In our approach, base stations track user mobility and determine data usage patterns of users passing by. Based on this, future data needs of a mobile device can be predicted. Base stations can collaborate (over the wired network) to identify other mobile devices with spare capacity whose routes intersect that of a needy device and use these carriers to transport data. When such a carrier meets the needy device, they can form ad hoc peer-to-peer communities to transfer the carried data. We also present the motivation, architecture and design of NUMI, our framework for supporting combined infrastructure and ad hoc peer-to-peer computing and a prototype application built on top of this framework.