QoS and energy efficiency in network wide broadcasting: A MAC layer perspective

In this paper we investigate the role of medium access control on the performance of network-wide real-time data broadcasting through flooding using three MAC protocols (IEEE 802.11, CPS, and MH-TRACE) in terms of QoS (packet delivery ratio, packet delay, and delay jitter) and energy dissipation. We conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of network-wide broadcasting through flooding in the node density, traffic load, and network size/topology parameter space. The results of our study show that different MAC protocols produce better performance than the others in different parts of the parameter space. Thus, in designing network layer broadcast architectures, the characteristics of the medium access control layer should be given the utmost importance to ensure the satisfactory performance of the system.