Official Rules

  1. The MANIAC Challenge - competition overview
  2. Logistics - deadlines, venue, etc.
  3. Technical Rules - hardware, deployment, etc.
  4. Winning Criteria - performance and design winners


[ The MANIAC Challenge ]

The Mobile Ad-hoc Networking Interoperability And Cooperation (MANIAC) Challenge can be described as an ad hoc multimedia relay race. Nodes from multiple teams form one large mobile ad-hoc network (MANET), with each team responsible for positioning and moving its own nodes. Multiple multimedia streams are generated from various locations with sets of multimedia streams destined to every participating team. The objective of each team is to ensure delivery of its streams while consuming as little energy as possible.

Source nodes will be positioned by the organizers such that no single team is capable of delivering all of its multimedia stream end-to-end without collaboration from nodes from other teams. The competition organizers set goals that teams must fulfill, such as timely delivery of a particular traffic flow.

The network will consist of two types of nodes:

  1. Team Nodes (TNs): These nodes will be operated by the teams and they will serve as destinations for the generated traffic. Each team will develop its own node cooperation policy.

  2. Reference nodes (RNs): These nodes will be operated by the MANIAC challenge organizers and will serve a variety of purposes. They will assist in the assessment of the competition through monitoring and observing network traffic and team nodes' behavior. RNs will also serve as multimedia traffic sources, generating multiple streams for TNs.

An example scenario that may take place during the competition is shown in Figure 1. Team 3 (T3) needs to rely on Team 2 (T2) to obtain its multimedia stream from RN1. At the same time, T2 depends on T3's cooperation to obtain its streams from RN3, and T1 must rely on T3's cooperation to obtain its streams from RN2 and RN3.


Figure 1. Example scenario for MANIAC Challenge

 

Sponsor
This competition was established with funding from the National Science Foundation under the Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS) program under Grant No. 0519825. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Download Sites
The current version of the rules in PDF format can be downloaded here. We recommend that participants subscribe to the MANIAC-ANOUNCE listserv so that they can be informed of new releases and updates of this document, as well as MANIAC related announcements (see Contact Us for instructions on how to subscribe to the listserv).

Rule Clarifications
If you have any questions regarding the rules of this competition please email: maniac_challenge@vt.edu

Acknowledgements
Many researchers have worked at various stages in the design of this competition. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. George Hadjichristofi, currently of Rutgers University, Dr. Kerry Wood, currently of the Applied Physics Laboratory/Johns Hopkins University, Mr. Vivek Srivastava and Mr. Jon Huret, of Virginia Tech, and Mr. Kaveh Mehrjoo.

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[ Logistics ]

Participants of this competition must agree to abide by the official rules written below. Participants who do not agree with any of these rules are advised not to enter the competition. MANIAC Challenge organizers have the sole discretion to disqualify anyone who acts in violation of the official rules or in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner.

This competition is designed to investigate interoperability and cooperation in mobile ad hoc networks. We will recognize teams who demonstrate innovative designs that effectively meet the competition objectives with a certificate. Other awards may be announced later, pending sponsorship.

Competition location
The competition will take place over two days in Washington, DC (projected to take place on 25-26 November 2007). The experimental part of the competition will be held on the first day. On the second day, teams are expected to make a presentation explaining their approach and solution. Results of the competition will also be announced on the second day. More details on venue and accommodations will be made public as they become available.

Who can compete?
Participants can be students over 18 years of age who are actively enrolled at an accredited educational institution and pursuing a degree related to computer networks or scientists from industry and any other organization that carry out research relevant to this competition.

Who cannot compete?
Faculty and students who were directly or indirectly involved in the design and set up of the competition.

Registration
Teams are required to submit a two-page summary describing the architecture of their solution. The summary should include the names of team members, their affiliations, and contact information. The registration request should be emailed to maniac_challenge@vt.edu.

Team size
Teams are expected to provide their own laptops and wireless cards. Each team must use 2 laptops. Entries using 1 laptop may be accepted at the discretion of the competition organizers.
Number of teams
The competition will accommodate a maximum of 25 teams. The organizing committee may limit this number, for any of the following reasons:

  1. Space limitations may be imposed by the site of the competition, and

    2.
  2. Other organizational constraints may restrict the number of teams that can be accommodated.

Travel assistance
A subset of students participating in the competition will be given travel assistance to attend the competition. Specifics of travel assistance are subject to availability and the organizers' sole discretion. Further details will be announced on the travel and venue web page.

Violations and copyright restrictions
Teams/individuals must design the solutions themselves and the right to use them in the competition must not be restricted in any way. The solution cannot invade publicity rights or infringe upon any individual's or organization's proprietary rights.

If part of a solution is not owned by a team, the team must be able to provide legal rights for the use of that part as requested by the competition organizers. Teams are required to obtain permission from the third party allowing the distribution of its solution. All solutions must be made available to the public at the end of competition. If there are any objections, the participants should notify the organizers of the competition.

Rights to use solutions
MANIAC participants grant the organizers the right to showcase a team's solution at any event and use a team's name, comments, and/or company logos on presentation slides and other MANIAC materials. MANIAC challenge organizers may also feature a team's solution in any medium such as a website or printed materials to promote this competition.

MANIAC challenge organizers are not claiming any ownership under a team's copyrights or other intellectual property interests. However, a team that participates in this competition grants to the competition organizers an irrevocable license to use, review, test, and analyze a team's solution in connection with this competition.

Limitations of Liability
If a team tampers with the competition through the use of virus, bugs, unauthorized access, fraud, technical failures or any other causes which corrupt or affect the administration, fairness, integrity, or proper operation of this competition, MANIAC challenge organizers may at their sole discretion disqualify that team and seek recovery for any damages caused by such actions. By entering the MANIAC challenge, participants release and hold harmless Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and its employees, officers, and agents from any and all liability or any injuries, loss, or damage of any kind arising from or in connection with this competition, the use of the entries, or the acceptance or use of any prize won. Participants agree to be bound by these Rules and Regulations and the decisions of the judges.

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[ Technical Rules ]

Hardware
Each laptop must use only one wireless 802.11b card. We expect the use of legal and commercial off-the-shelf wireless cards with no external antennas. Hardware modifications or the concurrent use of alternative wireless or wired networking technologies are not permitted. Teams are allowed to vary the transmission power of their wireless card. Even though such a modification may provide a team added connectivity benefits, it will be considered during the evaluation of a solution (see the Design Winner subsection in Winning Criteria). The battery life of the laptops participating in the competition should be at least 1 ½ hours to minimize the competition interruption for recharging batteries.

Deployment area
The competition will be carried out indoors and the deployment area will be large enough to guarantee that teams coming together to form a MANET do not establish a full mesh topology and communicate with RNs over multiple hops to obtain their traffic flows.

Node movement
Both RNs and TNs can move freely within the area allocated for the competition. An example setup is shown in Figure 2. In this example the reference nodes are stationed at the perimeter of the deployment area.


Figure 2. Example of MANET deployment

Traffic generation by RNs
Three types of traffic will be generated for clients:

  1. Real-time video traffic using the User Datagram Protocol (UDP),

    2.
  2. Non-real time UDP traffic, and

    3.
  3. Non-real time Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) traffic.

Traffic for each of the TNs may be generated from multiple RNs concurrently.

Traffic redirection

  1. Teams may not redirect traffic through RNs or nodes that are not registered or do not constitute part of this competition.

    2.
  2. Each team must depend on its own nodes or the nodes of other teams to deliver its own traffic flows.

Software
Teams are expected to develop their cooperation solution using the software provided by the MANIAC challenge organizers. The software includes an Applications Programming Interface (API) that provides each node with the capability to:

  1. Drop/forward traffic,

    2.
  2. Redirect traffic through any of its one-hop neighbors, and

    3.
  3. Obtain statistics indicating the effectiveness of its decisions.
More information about the software is provided here.

Traffic manipulation
Each node can manipulate received traffic destined to any TN but may not manipulate traffic destined to RNs. This traffic will be used for the purpose of assessment of the competition by the organizers. The impact of this traffic on the network load is expected to be minimal. If teams receive traffic originating from computers not participating in this competition, this traffic should be dropped.

Communication between nodes
Communication among teams or between team members must be carried out via the built in functions of the API that is included in the software supplied for this competition. Any communication that does not utilize the API is considered in violation of competition rules. This requirement will facilitate the testing and verification of the solutions of the teams in a simulated environment after the competition.

Manual configuration of laptops during competition runs
The competition will be executed in multiple runs lasting approximately 15-20 minutes. During each run participants are not allowed to adjust the configuration of their solution or any other configuration of their laptop. Teams that modify their configuration manually during a run will be disqualified.

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[ Winning Criteria ]

Winning teams will be announced in two categories:

  1. Performance winner - A performance winner is determined after an objective evaluation of the performance of the teams during the competition. The objective evaluation is based on: (a) measurements on the traffic flows received, and (b) measuring a proxy for energy consumed by each team in forwarding packets.
    Packets in each traffic flow will be marked as belonging to one of the teams in the competition. Packets will be of one of two types: real-time and non-real-time traffic.

    A team will win ten (10) points for each non-real-time packet belonging to one of their flows to reach its intended destination, and ten (10) points for each real-time packet belonging to one of their flows to reach its intended destination by playback time. A team will lose one (1) point for each packet it transmits; this includes all packets sourced and forwarded during the competition, excluding control traffic destined to the RNs.


  2. Design winner - A design winner will be determined by a panel of judges who will observe the competition and attend presentations from participating teams. This panel will choose the winner based on subjective assessment of the solutions implemented by each team.
    In addition to award certificates, the organizers will announce other prizes to be awarded to the winning teams (currently pending sponsorship).

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