Computing optimal local cover set for broadcast in ad hoc networks

Broadcast service is fundamental in ad hoc networks for different applications and dynamic source routing protocols. One problem that makes the traditional broadcast protocol inefficient is the broadcast storm problem. To alleviate the broadcast storm problem, the number of re-transmissions for a broadcast needs to be reduced. One possible solution is to use the node´s geometric location information to obtain a smaller subset of neighbors (called local cover set) for re-transmissions. In this paper, we investigate the unique existence of the optimal local cover set. Based on the proof, we construct a location-based algorithm to compute the local cover set. We prove the correctness of our algorithm and discuss the time complexity of the algorithm. The simulation shows that the local cover set generated by our algorithm is significantly smaller than the graph-based broadcast protocol of Wu and Li (see Proc. DIAL M, Aug. 1999, p.7-14).