Development of applications and protocols for mobile ad-hoc networks has always been a challenge. Specific characteristics such as frequent topology changes due to nodes moving around, popping up or being turned off, need to be considered from the earliest stages of development. Since testing and evaluation using genuine wireless devices is both expensive and highly impractical, other tools need to be used in the development phase. Simulators give a very detailed model of lower layers' behaviors, but code often needs to be completely rewritten in order to be used on actual physical devices. Emulators present a trade-off between real test beds and simulators, providing a virtual wireless network at the lowest layers, and yet allowing real code to be run on the higher layers. In this paper, we present such an emulation platform, called NEMAN, that allows us to run a virtual wireless network of hundreds of nodes on a single end-user machine. NEMAN has shown to be an important and very useful tool during development of different applications and protocols for our project, including a key management protocol and a distributed event notification service.

Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) provide the technical platform for efficient information sharing in emergency and rescue operations. Some the data present on the scene is highly confidential and requires protection. However, one of the main threats to a network is insertion of false data or alteration of existing ones, which could easily lead to network disruption and, ultimately, cause loss of human lives. This paper presents a simple and efficient key management protocol, called SKiMPy. The protocol allows devices carried by the rescue personnel to establish a symmetric shared key, to be used primarily to perform message signatures. The protocol is designed and optimized having in mind the high dynamicity present in such a scenario. Two different implementations were made, first as a standalone application and later as a plugin for the Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR). We present the evaluation results for both implementations and, in addition, for the latter one we describe in detail the emulation platform developed to test and evaluate this and other MANET protocols.

Efficient information sharing is very important for emergency and rescue operations. Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) are often the only network environment for such operations. We have developed the MIDAS Data Space (MDS) to transparently share information among rescue applications in such environments. To achieve the required level of availability for important information, MDS performs optimistic replication. The problems caused by optimistic replication, like consistency management, are not solved by standard solutions; instead we employ tailor-made solutions for emergency and rescue applications.

Information sharing is a mission critical key element in rescue and emergency operations. Mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) could provide a useful infrastructure to support information sharing, but appropriate applications are needed. To facilitate efficient application development for this type of infrastructure, middleware support is needed. In the Ad-Hoc Info Ware project, we are currently developing corresponding middleware services. In this paper, we discuss the application requirements that are imposed onto the middleware services, and we outline our technical approach to address the corresponding challenges. The architecture we propose comprises five main building blocks, namely knowledge management, a local and a distributed event notification service, resource management, and security and privacy management. We indicate design alternatives for these building blocks, identify open problems and relate our approach to the state-of-the-art.

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