Abstract
P2P and MANET are self-organized, decentralized, and dynamic networks. Although both networks have common characteristics, they are used for different purposes and operate at different layers. P2P provides the ability for peers to store and locate services in the network, while MANET provides an underlying routing capability to reach other mobile nodes. Thus, P2P and MANET could complement each other. However, P2P is originally designed to operate over the Internet, which provides rich routing capabilities compared to MANET. Therefore, deploying P2P over MANET must come with careful consideration of how to adjust P2P approaches to better suit MANET. In this paper, a novel system called KadOLSR is proposed to better develop an efficient P2P over MANET. The structure of the well-known Kademlia is used along with the OLSR. KadOLSR optimizes the similarities between P2P and MANET to reduce overlay management communication overhead and hence deploys a lightweight and efficient P2P over MANET. The network layer routing information is shared with the overlay to achieve the optimization. A cross-layer channel is constructed between the network layer and the overlay layer to exchange relevant routing information. The proposed system is designed, and its performance is evaluated using a network simulator. The performance of KadOLSR is also compared to one of the recent P2P for MANET systems. The simulation results show that KadOLSR performs well across all different network sizes and mobility speeds.