Realizing and benchmarking broadcast algorithms in wireless mesh networks

Broadcasting by flooding causes the broadcast storm problem in multi-hop wireless networks. This problem becomes more likely in a wireless mesh network (WMN) because WMNs can bridge wired LANs, increasing broadcast traffic and collision probability. Since the network control, routing, and topology maintenance of a WMN highly rely on layer-2 broadcasting, unreliable broadcast algorithms directly destabilize a WMN. Researchers have developed many algorithms for efficient and reliable broadcast in multi-hop wireless networks. However, real-world systems rarely verify or compare these approaches, especially in a WMN. This paper examines six representative broadcast algorithms: simple flooding, dynamic probabilistic, efficient counter-based broadcast, scalable broadcast, domain pruning, and connected-dominating-set based algorithms. This study addresses both common and algorithm-specific implementation in a real-world IEEE 802.11s WMN testbed. Experiments under various topologies and packet lengths reveal the reliability, forwarding ratio, and efficiency of these six algorithms. Quantitative survey results indicate that the scalable broadcast algorithm possesses the best reliability due to its lower collision probability. The domain-pruning algorithm is the most efficient algorithm when considering both reliability and the forwarding ratio.