With the increasing integration of wireless short-range communication
technologies in mobile devices, novel applications for spontaneous
communication, interaction and collaboration are possible. In this book,
we distinguish between active and passive collaboration. The devices
help users become aware of each other and stimulate face-to-face
conversation (active collaboration). Also, autonomous device
communication for sharing information without user interaction is
possible, i.e., devices pass information to other devices in their
vicinity (passive collaboration). Spontaneous communication of mobile
devices leads to so-called opportunistic networks, a new and promising
evolution in mobile ad-hoc networking. They are formed by mobile devices
which communicate with each other while users are in close proximity.
This book investigates opportunistic networks in their entirety. The
proposed concepts comprise system components, a node architecture, a
system model and a simple one-hop communication paradigm for
opportunistic network applications. One focus of this book is a
profile-based data dissemination mechanism. Readers of this book would
include graduate students and postgraduate researchers in both academia
and industry, who wish to gain a deeper knowledge of opportunistic
networks, its underlying idea and its potential capabilities.
