A wave propagation-based adaptive probabilistic broadcast containment strategy for reactive MANET routing protocols

Abstract The efficiency of broadcast propagation schemes can significantly condition the performance and effectiveness of mobile ad-hoc networks. Probabilistic forwarding strategies are considered between the most promising optimization approaches due to their inherent simplicity that makes them easy to implement on any platform, very fast and computationally inexpensive. In this work, we present a novel adaptive probabilistic approach for containing broadcast propagation in reactive network discovery based on modeling the broadcast propagation behavior as harmonic spherical waves generated by a single source, and hence determining the forwarding probability by considering how the intensity of a wave attenuates with its distance from the source. We used discrete event simulation to demonstrate how the proposed strategy can introduce appreciable benefits on the overall performance of modern broadcast-based reactive routing protocols, resulting in a real breakthrough in ad-hoc environments characterized by an high degree of mobility.