MIP3S: algorithms for power-conserving multicasting in static wireless ad hoc networks

In a static ad hoc wireless network, given a distinguished source node, and a subset of nodes called multicast group members, the minimum-energy multicast problem is to assign appropriate power levels to nodes in the network so that all group members are reachable from the source, and that the total power usage is as small as possible. In the centralized version of the problem, one finds such power assignment given the entire network topology. In the distributed version, a power assignment is found by exchanging information between neighboring nodes. In this paper, we proposed new algorithms based on the idea of multicast incremental power with potential power saving (MIP3S). Simulations show that the new algorithms work better than all known algorithms. Different versions of this idea, when made distributive, are of different time and message complexities, imposing an interesting trade-off in total saving in power and other complexity measures.