Dynamic Social Grouping Based Routing in a Mobile Ad-hoc Network

The patterns of movement used by Mobile Ad-Hoc networks are application specific, in the sense that networks use nodes which travel in different paths. When these nodes are used in experiments involving social patterns, such as wildlife tracking, algorithms which detect and use these patterns can be used to improve routing efficiency. The intent of this paper is to introduce a routing algorithm which forms a series of social groups which accurately indicate a node's regular contact patterns while dynamically shifting to represent changes to the social environment. With the social groups formed, a probabilistic routing schema is used to effectively identify which social groups have consistent contact with the base station, and route accordingly. The algorithm can be implemented dynamically, in the sense that the nodes initially have no awareness of their environment, and works to reduce overhead and message traffic while maintaining high delivery ratio.