An experimental investigation of optimized flooding protocols using a wireless sensor network testbed

In addition to unicast routing, most wireless multi-hop networks also need network-wide broadcasting. In this paper, we investigate Blind Flooding and two different types of optimized flooding protocols: Counter-Based Broadcasting (CBB) and a neighbor knowledge-based flooding protocol called Prioritized Flooding with Self-Pruning (PFS). The latter is investigated in more detail. We test both protocols in a real wireless multi-hop network based on sensor motes and compare their performance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time optimized flooding protocols that support mobility are being tested and measured in a real wireless network. We outline problems found when using the protocols in real wireless networks and how to alleviate the encountered problems. The final results indicate that PFS and CBB achieved significant reduction of retransmissions compared to Blind Flooding and that they have comparable performance. We also combine these two protocols and show how this leads to further performance improvements.