Improving broadcast performance by traffic isolation in wireless ad hoc networks

Abstract

SUMMARYIn this paper we propose a new broadcasting algorithm. In the proposed method we significantly reduce the broadcast overhead and also improve the broadcast delivery ratio in mobile networks. A novel traffic isolation method has been used which reduces the control message exchange. The proposed broadcasting method is based on a clustering method called 'stability-based clustering algorithm' which had been proposed before. The broadcasting traffic is divided into internal (flow inside a cluster) and external traffic (flow among the clusters). For internal flooding traffic, cluster-heads and gateways are responsible for rebroadcasting but for external type, border nodes may perform the forwarding function as well. This simplifies the gateway selection method through the local selection of gateway nodes by its cluster head. Therefore, a cluster head selects gateway in its own cluster without any knowledge of other clusters. Considering the effect of mobility and node density, simulations have been conducted in a number of wireless environments. Simulation results show the broadcast coverage is close to 100% at different node speeds. Moreover, we study the broadcast parameters in light and dense networks and show improvement of the overhead and the number of forward nodes in comparison to other broadcasting methods.