Who we are
We are a team of researchers in computer sciences from the Spirals team (Lille, France), which belongs to the CRIStAL research center.
Our research subject
Please Answer the poll before reading on: don't biase your answers!
Device-to-device (D2D) communication refers to mobile devices discussing directly with one another, eschewing intermediaries such as a cellular base station.
D2D has been physically possible using a variety of wireless communication channels for a long time (infrared, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC...).
However, the D2D paradigm was never largely adopted by user-facing applications, despite the growth of collaborative use-cases that would benefit from it.
Instead, most networked applications rely on centralised infrastructures, even for inherently local use-cases such as face-to-face file sharing.
Now that most people in our modern lifestyles walk around carrying a smartphone, the D2D paradigm is more appealing than ever:
for its low environmental footprint, inherent privacy, and for the pathway it paves to local, personalised and collaborative services.
This survey polls the current solutions used by the public for the most inherently D2D-prone use-case: the exchange of documents between nearby devices.