Cooperative Neighbor Discovery Protocol for a Wireless Network Using Two Antenna Patterns

Neighbor discovery is necessary for the proper functioning of wireless networks. Directional antennae can be used in the network to improve connectivity due to the fact that a narrower beam width can reach a faraway place using the same transmission power. Researches until now have worked on neighbor discovery using only omni directional antenna (OO), neighbor discovery using only directional antenna (DD), or neighbor discovery using one antenna type for transmission and the other type for reception (OD and DO). In this work, we propose a new neighbor discovery model where both antenna neighbor discovery types are available (D+O). Nodes exchange neighbor information with omni directional antennae, and neighbor information beyond the reach of omni directional antennae are collected using directional antennae. In our model, neighboring nodes cooperate with each other to speed up the neighbor discovery process. Two neighbor cooperation mechanisms are presented in the model. Through analysis, we show that the proposed protocol can reduce delays in the neighboring discovery process when the number of neighboring nodes increases following a Poisson distribution and contentions are taken into consideration. Through simulation, we show the improved delay performance and the energy efficiency of the proposed solution when it is compared with other neighbor discovery approaches in the literature.