Dynamic probabilistic broadcasting in MANETs

In mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), the efficiency of broadcasting protocol can dramatically affect the performance of the entire network. Appropriate use of a probabilistic method can reduce the number of rebroadcasting, therefore reduce the chance of contention and collision among neighboring nodes. A good probabilistic broadcast protocol can achieve higher throughput and lower energy consumption, without sacrificing the reachability or having any significant degradation. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic approach that dynamically adjusts the rebroadcasting probability as per the node distribution and node movement. This is done based on locally available information and without requiring any assistance of distance measurements or exact location determination devices. We evaluate the performance of our approach by comparing it with the AODV protocol (which is based on simple flooding) as well as a fixed probabilistic approach. Simulation results show our approach performs better than both simple flooding and fixed probabilistic schemes.