Opportunistic broadcast in mobile ad-hoc networks subject to channel randomness

Broadcast in mobile ad-hoc networks is a challenging and resource demanding task, due to the effects of dynamic network topology and channel randomness. In this paper, we consider 2D wireless ad-hoc networks where nodes are randomly distributed and move following a random direction mobility model. A piece of information is broadcast from an arbitrary node. Based on an in-depth analysis into the popular Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) epidemic routing algorithm for mobile ad-hoc networks, an energy and spectrum efficient broadcast scheme is proposed, which is able to adapt to fast-changing network topology and channel randomness. Analytical results are provided to characterize the performance of the proposed scheme, including the fraction of nodes that can receive the information and the delay of information propagation. The accuracy of analytical results is verified using simulations.