Profile-Based Ad Hoc Social Networking Using Wi-Fi Direct on the Top of Android

Ad hoc social networks have become popular to support novel applications related to location-based mobile services that are of great importance to users and businesses. Unlike traditional social services using a centralized server to fetch location, ad hoc social network services support infrastructure-less real-time social networking. It allows users to collaborate and share views anytime anywhere. However, current ad hoc social network applications either are not available without rooting the mobile phones or do not filter the nearby users based on common interests without a centralized server. This paper presents an architecture and implementation of social networks on commercially available mobile devices that allow broadcasting name and a limited number of keywords representing users' interests without any connection in a nearby region to facilitate matching of interests. The broadcasting region creates a digital aura and is limited by the Wi-Fi region that is around 200 meters. The application connects users to form a group based on their profile or interests using the peer-to-peer communication mode without using any centralized networking or profile-matching infrastructure. The peer-to-peer group can be used for private communication when the network is not available.