HyMN-injection-based multimedia content distribution in hybrid wireless networks

Abstract

Infrastructured networks typically employ centralized approaches for group management and information provisioning. In contrast to that, in multi-hop ad hoc networks each node acts as a router as well as sender and receiver. In pure ad hoc networks, no Internet access is available. An additional challenge is to deal with mobility that causes network partitioning and re-organizations. Technically, these problems can be tackled by providing additional uplinks to a backbone network. Those can be used to access resources in the Internet as well as to inter-link multiple ad hoc network partitions, creating a hybrid wireless network. In this paper, we present HyMN, a prototypically implemented hybrid wireless network system optimized for multimedia content providing. Within the ad hoc network, adequate devices are elected to maintain uplinks to a backbone, which can provide for instance multimedia news from certain sports events like Football Championships, Olympic Games and alike. In order to efficiently manage the ad hoc communicating devices, a weighted clustering algorithm is employed.