icbnet

Limited energy resources and mobility issues affect the topology of ad hoc networks and introduce difficulties in service discovery. The high possibility of a link breakdown due to low energy supplies in a ubiquitous computing environment, such as a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), raises service-provider selection issues with regard to achieving the best possible service reliability. Every node requiring a specific service must choose a provider under certain criteria. This article provides an overview of standardized service-discovery and delivery solutions. In addition, a novel architecture is proposed which provides the ability to select a service provider by taking into account metrics such as the power supplies of the service provider and concomitant path towards the destination. The proposed algorithm is decentralized and based on service location protocol version 2 (SLPvZ) extensions