Car-Torrent: A swarming protocol for Car-to-Car Networks

Speaker:	Dr. Giovanni Pau
		Research Scientist
		UCLA Computer Science Department
		Los Angeles, USA

Title:		"Car-Torrent: A swarming protocol for Car-to-Car Networks"

Date:		Tuesday, 10 May 2005

Time:		4:00-5:00pm

Venue:		Rm3464 (via lift nos. 25/26)
		Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

Abstract:

Wireless networks for inter-vehicular communications have been recently in
the limelight for its safety and security applications. In particular
several car manufacturer such Mercedes, Honda, General Motors, etc., in
partnership with silicon vendors and software providers such Bosh,
Nextech, Microsoft etc. proposed a number of solutions to avoid possible
risks due to human mistakes and unpredictable road conditions. In the near
future cars will be equipped with a broad range of sensors and
communication systems. In particular, future vehicular networks are
expected to deploy short/mid range communication technology for
inter-vehicle communications.  In addition to vehicle-vehicle
communication (for safety, and automatic driving purposes), users will be
interested in accessing the multimedia-rich Internet from within the
vehicular network. Vehicular networks will foster the user need of
connectivity while in motion thus challenging the design of current
wireless networks. It is conceivable in the near-future that wireless
"hotspots" experience flash crowds-like traffic arrival pattern. A common
phenomena in the Internet today characterized by sudden and unpredicted
increase in popularity of on-line content. We propose SPAWN, a cooperative
strategy for content delivery and sharing in future vehicular networks.
We study the issues involved in using such a strategy from the standpoint
of Vehicular Ad-Hoc networks. In particular, we show that not only content
server but also wireless access network load reduction is critical. We
propose a "communication efficient" swarming protocol which uses a gossip
mechanism that leverages the inherent broadcast nature of the wireless
medium, and a piece-selection strategy that takes proximity into account
in decisions to exchange pieces. We show that gossip incorporates
location-awareness into peer selection, while incurring low messaging
overhead, and consequently enhancing the swarming protocol performance.


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Biography

Giovanni Pau is a Research Scientist at the UCLA computer Science
Department. He received the Laurea Doctorate in Computer Science and the
PhD in Computer Engineering from the University of Bologna in 1998 and
2003 respectively. His research interests include Peer-to-Peer networks,
Wireless Multimedia, Distributed Systems and Ad Hoc Networks. He served as
Consultant for international such the European Space Agency and the
UNESCO. Giovanni is currently serving as secretary of the IEEE Multimedia
Technical Committee and as Technical Program Committee member in several
International Conferences.