Impact of jitter-based techniques on flooding over wireless ad hoc networks: Model and analysis

Jitter is used in wireless ad hoc networks to reduce the number of packet collisions and the number of transmissions. This is done by scheduling random back-off for each packet to be transmitted and by piggybacking multiple packets in a single transmission. This technique has been standardized by the IETF in RFC 5148. This paper investigates on the impact of the standardized jitter mechanism on network-wide packet dissemination - i.e. flooding, an important component for many protocols used today. A novel analytical model is introduced, capturing standard jitter traits. From this model is derived accurate characterization of the effects of jittering on flooding performance, including the additional delay for flooded packets on each traversed network interface, the reduction of the number of transmissions over each network interface, and the increased length of transmissions, depending on jitter parameters. This paper also presents an analysis of the use of jitter in practice, over an 802.11 wireless link layer based on CSMA. The analytical results are then validated via statistical discrete event simulations. The paper thus provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of jittering in wireless ad hoc networks.