The Collaboration in Ad hoc Networks (CiAN) project is concerned with building a workflow management system (WfMS) for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) with the aim of using this system as a platform for fostering collaborations involving people and software se rvices in the physical world.

Designing any type of distributed system that operates across MANETs is challenging due to the dynamic network topology and inherent unpredictability of the environment. However, as adoption of mobile computing continues to dramatically increase, mobile devices such as ultramobile PCs, PDAs, and cellular phones are becoming platforms that cannot be ignored from a software development perspective. Along with the growth of mobile computing comes a need for a new generation of software applications that are designed to exploit the unique features and overcome the many challenges of mobile platforms.

CiAN is an attempt to build one such type of next generation software for mobile devices - a platform that supports and manages human to human and human to computer collaborations. CiAN uses the workflow model to represent the structure of an activity that involves multiple tasks being performed in a structured, collaborative fashion by multiple users. Using the workflow model as a base, we developed an XML-based specification that can be used to build workflows that can be fragmented and distributed across the hosts of participating users so that the collaborative activity is executed in a distributed manner. The tasks coded in CiAN are executed by our Java-based CiAN middleware, which runs on mobile hosts. Communication of task results between hosts occurs via a protocol that uses the workflow structure to make routing decisions on data packets.

In addition to the core CiAN middleware, several ancillary projects contribute algorithmic and feature enhancements to the central effort.

The CiAN project is supported by NSF-IIS Grant No. 0534669 - "Adaptive Systems for Collaboration in Multi-mode Mobile Environments."