In the last decade, the number of wireless capable devices increased drastically along with their popularity. Devices also became more powerful and affordable, attracting more users to mobile networks. In this thesis we consider service discovery in Mobile Ad hoc NETworks, also called MANETs, that are a collection of devices that communicate with each other spontaneously whenever they are in wireless transmission range without any preexisting infrastructure. The main characteristic of MANETs is the high dynamic of nodes (induced by the users moving around), the volatile wireless transmissions, the user behavior, the services and their usage. This thesis proposes a complete solution for service discovery in ad hoc networks, from the underlying network up to the service discovery itself. A first contribution is the Stable Linked Structure Flooding (SLSF) protocol that creates stable based cluster structure and thereby provides scalable and efficient message dissemination. The second contribution is the Stable Linked Structure Routing (SLSR) protocol that uses the SLSF dissemination structure to enable routing capabilities. Using those protocols as basis, we propose to improve service discovery by additionally considering context awareness and adaptation. Moreover, we also contributed on improving simulations by coupling simulators and models that, together, can model and simulate the variety and richness of ad hoc related usage scenarios and their human characteristic. This thesis was accomplished within the ANR SARAH project that aimed at deploying advanced multimedia services in a hybrid ad hoc network architecture.
