A low power protocol to broadcast real-time data traffic in a clustered ad hoc network

Energy saving is an extremely important design criteria for mobile ad hoc networks. We present the intra-cluster data-dissemination protocol (Icdp). The Icdp is used to group nodes around a special one, called the cluster leader (CL). The CL centralizes the power management mechanism and acts as a proxy for data transfer between the cluster and the rest of the nodes in the region. When a cluster node enables the power management it goes into "sleep" mode, to minimize power consumption. The CL buffers data frames for power saving stations and delivers them on the stations\´ request. We periodically distribute the cluster leader role among all the nodes inside the cluster, to not overload a single node. We evaluate the performance benefits of this proposal by simulating the use of our protocol to distribute real-time video in a bounded region