Intelligent Multiple-Criteria Broadcasting in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

Networks often require a copy of a message to be delivered to every network node. The network-layer can provide this service, referred to as network-wide broadcast routing, or simply "broadcasting". Broadcasting has many applications, including its role as a building block in many routing protocols. In a MANET, simplistic broadcast schemes (such as flooding) inundate the network with redundancy, contention, collision, and energy-inefficiency. This can prevent broadcasts from achieving the objectives of optimal delivery ratio, energy balancing, and latency. As a solution, we propose multiple-criteria broadcasting (MCB). In MCB, the source of each broadcast specifies the importance assigned to broadcast objectives. Network nodes use this policy, along with local and neighbor knowledge, to broadcast in accordance with the objective priorities attributed to the message. Using ns2, the performance of MCB is evaluated and compared to other broadcast protocols. To present knowledge, MCB constitutes the first reconfigurable, multi-objective approach to broadcasting