Autonomous Reconfiguration by Innovation of Diffusions - A Distributed Decision-Making Framework for Multi-State Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

The spatially and temporally diverse nature of ad hoc networks strongly suggests the development of a sophisticated multi protocol network-layer that should enable the ad hoc network's nodes to dynamically change the routing protocol as networking scenarios demand. In short, the routing protocol is to be considered a system variable. However, the autonomous reconfiguration of such a dependent variable is a non trivial task in the challenging environment of a realistically modelled open, mobile, wireless ad hoc network. We present a novel Eramework that builds on the social science theory of diffusion of innovations, a theory which describes a flexible decision-making model. This concept enables the development of an autonomous reconfiguration protocol which addresses the constraints imposed by the mobile ad hoc networking system model.