A Protocol for Resource Sharing in Norm-Governed Ad Hoc Networks

Ad hoc networks may be viewed as computational systems whose members may fail to, or choose not to, comply with the rules governing their behaviour. We are investigating to what extent ad hoc networks can usefully be described in terms of permissions, obligations and other more complex normative relations, based on our previous work on specifying and modelling open agent societies. We now propose to apply our existing framework for the management of ad hoc networks, exploiting the similarities between open agent societies and ad hoc networks viewed at the application level. We also discuss the prospects of modelling ad hoc networks at the physical level in similar terms. We demonstrate the framework by constructing an executable specification, in the event calculus, of a common type of protocol concerning one of the issues that typically needs to be addressed during the life-time of an ad hoc network, namely the control of access to shared resources.