Load Balanced Broadcasting in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Using Directional Antennas

Using directional antennas to conserve bandwidth and energy consumption in ad hoc wireless networks has attracted much attention of the research community in recent years. However, limited research has focused on applying directional antennas to broadcasting and the load balance in broadcasting. Taking the load balance into consideration, we devise a link reduction (LLR) based on broadcasting protocol for ad hoc wireless networks using directional antennas. LLR outperforms most existing omnidirectional and directional broadcasting schemes in the sense that its normalized transmission cost and redundancy are significantly reduced while the longevity of a network is greatly increased. LLR is a localized protocol based on 2-hop neighbor information and it achieves full delivery in ad hoc networks. Simulation is conducted in ideal networks where packet collision, channel contention, or node mobility is avoided.