Dynamic probabilistic counter-based broadcasting in mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract

In Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANETs), flooding is the simplest broadcasting mechanism where each node retransmits every uniquely received packet exactly once. Despite its simplicity it could potentially leads to high redundant retransmissions causing high channel contention and thus excessive packet collisions in the network. This phenomenon referred to as broadcast storm problem has been shown to greatly increase the network communication overhead and end-to-end delay. Numerous probabilistic approaches have been proposed to mitigate the impact of this inherent phenomenon. However, most of these techniques are inadequate in reducing the number of redundant retransmissions while still guaranteeing that all nodes receive the packet. Further, in most cases they use a predetermined forwarding probability value for all nodes in the network which is quite unlikely to be optimal in other network set up. In this paper, we propose a new dynamic probabilistic counter-based broadcast scheme that can dynamically compute the forwarding probability at a node based on its neighbourhood information. Simulation results show that the new broadcast scheme achieves superior performance in terms of retransmitting nodes, collision rate, and end-to-end delay without sacrificing reachability compared to the existing schemes.