Service Composition in Opportunistic Networks

An opportunistic contact between two mobile devices takes place when they are within communication range of each other. Typically, cyber-physical environments comprise a number of mobile devices that are likely to make opportunistic contacts in time and space. In the recent past, researchers have exploited opportunistic links mostly for routing and content sharing. However, less attention has been devoted to the more general concept of opportunistic computing, which consists of utilizing any resource available in a pervasive environment by exploiting opportunistic contacts. In cyber-physical pervasive environments, opportunistic computing will be used to elaborate data coming both from the physical and the cyber worlds, according to the users' needs, and exploiting all available resources. In this paper, we develop a modular middleware architecture for service composition in opportunistic networks. In particular, we demonstrate the utility of the middleware for fault tolerant service composition in such environments. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the middleware and associated service composition scheme in pervasive environments with underlying opportunistic networks.