An Exponential Improvement on the MST Heuristic for Minimum Energy Broadcasting in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

We present a new approximation algorithm for the Minimum Energy Broadcast Routing (MEBR) problem in ad hoc wireless networks that achieves an exponentially better approximation factor compared to the well-known Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) heuristic. Namely, for any instance where a minimum spanning tree of the set of stations is guaranteed to cost at most ρ ≥ 2 times the cost of an optimal solution for MEBR, we prove that our algorithm achieves an approximation ratio bounded by 2lnρ-2 ln 2 + 2. This result is particularly relevant for its consequences on Euclidean instances where we significantly improve previous results. In this respect, our experimental analysis confirms the better performance of the algorithm also in practice.