Alternating MPR: a balanced broadcast algorithm for MANETs

Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) assume no previous network infrastructure and wireless communication between mobile and heterogeneous nodes. An efficient broadcast protocol is therefore paramount. When some neighborhood information is available beforehand through discovery, building a virtual overlay like MultiPoint Relay (MPR) can help improve reliability and decrease cost in messages. However, MPR overlays tend to unfairly stress specific nodes who happen to be well-connected, causing their premature death. We propose the alternating MPR protocol that strives to build several disjoint relay sets for each node, allowing broadcast messages to use each of them in turn. Our simulation of the full network stack of systems of various densities shows that alternating MPR spreads energy costs more evenly across the system, without harming reliability and at little cost in number of messages, allowing battery-powered nodes to survive longer.