IP3S: a Framework for Power-Conserving Multicast and Broadcast Algorithms in Static Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

In this chapter we have discussed the problem of devising algorithms to solve the minimum energy consumption broadcast/multicast problems in static wireless ad hoc networks. A brief overview of existing works, along with a thorough explanation of the IP3S framework were presented. By extensive simulations, for broadcasting, we have shown that IP3S outper form all known algorithms, and DIP3S — the distributed version of IP3S-b is even better than most know centralized broadcasting algorithms. For multicasting, we show that DMIP3S outperform most known centralized algorithms when multicast groups are small, about 60% to 65% or less of the total number of nodes. In fact, MIP3S - the centralized version of DMIP3S - is the best centralized multicast algorithm. On the other hand, for large group sizes, i.e. when the multicast problem tends to the broadcast problem, P-DIP3S performs the best among the distributed algorithms and better than most of the centralized ones. There are several problems we are working on, arising from the ideas of this chapter. Analyzing the approximation ratios of the centralized versions is a major challenge. Good lower bound on the approximation ratios should also be devised. Another major challenge is to devise good power-conserving distributed multicast and broadcast algorthms under mobility.