Channel vector: An overhead reduced Broadcast in multichannel Wireless Mesh Networks

Broadcast is the most basic way to disseminate data from one source node to all the others in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) while overhead can be a vital factor restricting the improvement of broadcast performance, especially under multichannel conditions. We propose a novel broadcast scheme named channel vector based broadcast suitable for multiradio multichannel WMNs. We utilize channel vectors which are much shorter than detailed neighbor and channel information to describe the channels every node supports. By exchanging channel vectors through periodic Hello packets, we can reduce the neighbor discovery overhead significantly while guaranteeing the accuracy of topology information for routing at the same time. Besides, channel vectors can help forwarding nodes calculate the best forwarding channel instead of broadcasting data on all channels, which will significantly reduce redundant transmissions. We conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the performance of our scheme, compared with three other broadcast schemes, random broadcast, CDS based broadcast and Broadcast in Multiradio Multichannel Networks (BMMN). Results show that channel vector based broadcast reduces the broadcast overhead by 63.19%, 50.27% and 23.13% compared with random broadcast, CDS based broadcast and BMMN respectively, and improves throughput by about 26.18% compared with BMMN.