Master thesis : Analysis and use cases of a library designed for mobile ad hoc communications.

Abstract

Ad hoc networks are wireless networks that do not require a centralized networking infrastructure, and mobile devices are the perfect devices to use in this type of network. Hence, it becomes interesting to develop mobile applications that support ad hoc networks.

The Flutter framework offers a new solution to cross-platform development, and allows developers to design, implement and share plugins that expose certain functionalities, one being the support for ad hoc communications. Such a plugin already exists in the Flutter ecosystem. The goal of this research is to present an external point of view of the plugin.

First, the plugin is exploited in different use cases. A music sharing application exploits the concept of distributed cache. Each user holds a list of songs in their local cache. Instead of downloading a song from the Internet, a user asks first for the song in the distributed cache, i.e. the combination of the caches from the ad hoc network's devices. Another use case is a multiplayer game that allows users to play with other devices, either from a local ad hoc network, either from the Internet.

Then, the plugin is compared with a new plugin based on the Google Nearby Connections API. Both a static and a dynamic analysis are performed. Their functionalities, security aspects and performance are analyzed and compared. The latter seems to be the most energy efficient, while the former offers more functionalities.