An Efficient Method for Identifying MaxRS Location in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Abstract

In this paper, we address the problem of MaxRS (Maximizing Range Sum) query processing in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). We assume a MANET consisting of nodes which hold data items with scores and location information. A query originating node issues a MaxRS query with a size of a rectangle. Then, it retrieves the location of the rectangle which maximizes the sum of the scores of all data items covered by the rectangle (MaxRS location). We can employ MaxRS queries to enhance rescue operations in disaster sites, which is a typical example of MANETs. In this example, we can find a dense location where many victims exist in a disaster site. In a naive approach to processing MaxRS queries, each node forwards its entire dataset to the query originating node, and this node locally computes the result. This approach is inefficient because the network bandwidth is limited in MANETs. We therefore propose a communication-efficient method which retrieves the MaxRS location in two phases. Phase 1 plays the important role of pruning data items not necessary to identify the MaxRS location, and enables the retrieval of only necessary data items in phase 2. Simulation experiments demonstrate the efficiency of our approach.