An efficient flooding method in ad-hoc networks for reducing power consumption

In recent years, improved performance of wireless communication technology and lighter mobile terminals that have advanced functions have encouraged consideration of ad-hoc networks, which are temporary networks for the exchange of information among mobile wireless terminals. The features of ad-hoc networks include such advantages as not needing a network infrastructure and multi-hop communication. For practical use, however, the problem of terminal battery power consumption must be solved. An effective method for suppressing terminal power consumption is therefore necessary. The work reported here focuses on the battery power consumption caused by pre-communication flooding. We propose a flooding method that makes use of the characteristics of the existing DSR protocol to conserve power. We confirm the effectiveness of that method through simulation experiments. The experiments varied the cache data time to live and the parameters of the proposed method to evaluate power consumption and delay. The results show that the delay is increased somewhat, but the amount of power consumed is reduced.