Centron: Cooperative neighbor discovery in mobile Ad-hoc networks

The fundamental step to support proximity-based applications is to discover the mobile devices nearby. Recent algorithms pay attentions on the rendezvous situation, which suffers from frequent collisions among mobile nodes with dense pattern. In this paper, we deign a discovery protocol, named Centron, specifically for crowded region (e.g., conference hall, and train carriage). In the Centron protocol, the mobile nodes are encouraged to construct non-overlapped core groups to act as a “big mobile node” with the duty cycle generated from the core creators. The protocol aims to use little energy in core group construction and negotiation to exchange for lower collision cost. Besides, two channels are utilized in the protocol: one is for discovering neighbors, and the other one is used to negotiate with the core members. We evaluate the performance of our protocol by providing mathematical results and combining the simulative data in Stockholm with NS-3 network simulator to construct the scenario. The Centron protocol performs about 10% improvement in the discovery latency than the existing methods with less energy consumption.