Multi-Rate Broadcasting: Analysis and Design of Stateless Algorithms

We look at the problem of network wide broadcast using the multi-rate feature of a wireless ad hoc network. Existing research has primarily focused on achieving minimum latency by construction of minimum weight connected dominating sets (WCDS) based on neighbourhood information. In this paper, we are interested in stateless multi-rate broadcasting algorithms in which nodes determine their broadcasting behaviour based on neighbourhood transmissions. The primary contribution of this paper is that we show how broadcast effectiveness at different data rates are related and how this relationship can be used to optimize algorithm design. We propose three stateless broadcasting algorithms and demonstrate the performance improvements achievable. Our simulation results show that significant benefits can be obtained in terms of minimizing both the number of forwarding nodes as well as the broadcast latency.