MobiSN: Semantics-Based Mobile Ad Hoc Social Network Framework

Abstract

Mobile ad hoc social networks are self-configuring social networks that connect users using mobile devices, such as laptops, PDAs, and cellular phones. These social networks facilitate users to form virtual communities of similar interests or commonalities. This paper proposes a concrete, generalized, and novel framework to develop a fully functional mobile ad hoc social network. The proposed framework provides effective and efficient solutions to social network construction, semantics-based user profile matching, and multi-hop semantics-based routing. Moreover, the proposed framework because of its generality is applicable in applications of critical importance, such as disaster-recovery, homeland security, and personnel control. Furthermore, the proposed framework is rigorously benchmarked using an elaborate simulation setup and released as a prototype system that can be run on cellular phones.