Variable power broadcast using local information in ad hoc networks

Network wide broadcast is a frequently used operation in ad hoc networks. Developing energy efficient protocols to reduce the overall energy expenditure in network wide broadcast can contribute toward increasing the longevity of ad hoc networks. Most of the existing work in energy efficient broadcast protocols use either a fixed transmission power model or assume global knowledge of the entire network at each node. Variable power broadcast with local knowledge has recently been proposed as a promising alternative approach for network wide broadcast in ad hoc networks. In this paper, we present a novel approach, called INOP, for network wide broadcast. INOP is a variable power broadcast approach that uses local (two-hop neighborhood) information. INOP utilizes a novel technique for determining the transmission power level at each transmitting node. We also propose two alternative methods to cover the nodes that are not covered by the transmission of the source or a retransmitting node. Our simulation based evaluations show that, compared to other approaches, INOP achieves better results in terms of energy efficiency, and competes with and exceeds other approaches in terms of a number of other performance metrics including traffic overhead, coverage, and convergence time. Based on these results, we can conclude that INOP improves the current state-of-the-art approaches for energy efficient broadcast in ad hoc networks.