A geography-aware service overlay network for managing moving objects

Abstract

As the proliferation of mobile devices and positioning systems continues unabated, the need to provide more robust location-based services becomes more pressing. In this context, we examine the problem of efficiently handling queries over moving objects and propose a location-aware overlay network that helps monitoring such objects while traversing contained geographic extends. We use a triangulation structure to divide a geographic area using fixed service nodes as anchors based on their geographic position. Triangulation inherently contains each moving object within an area designated by three service nodes. We introduce a method for monitoring moving objects and we present an algorithm for processing nearest-neighbor queries while restricting the amount of resources and, subsequently, the volume of transmitted messages. Through simulation, we evaluate the suggested approach and show that our nearest-neighbor query processing method provides always accurate results while it uses invariantly a constant number of service nodes. We finally show that the average physical distance between service and roaming nodes remains limited; this yields a significant number of physical connections that avoid conventional Internet routing altogether.