A forwarding acknowledgement based multi-hop broadcast algorithm in vehicular ad hoc networks

As a fundamental element in vehicular ad hoc network, broadcast has been frequently used to exchange and disseminate messages among vehicles. In this paper, a multi-hop broadcast algorithm named forwarding acknowledgement based multi-hop broadcast (FAMB) is proposed. In this proposed algorithm, multi-hop is used to overcome the problem of limited communication range and transmit messages far away. A forwarding candidate set based on vehicles position information and a forwarding node selection mechanism are developed to overcome the broadcast storm. Only a unique forwarding node per hop along transmission direction will be assigned to rebroadcast messages to its neighbors. Two short control packets and a unit timeslot are introduced to carry out the forwarding acknowledgement and reduce the per-hop delay. In addition, over time rebroadcasting approaches in the forwarding node selection link are carried out to guarantee the transmission reliability. The simulation results confirm that FAMB mitigates the broadcast storm significantly and it also performs well in the real time and reliability of data transmission.