Performance analysis of an adaptive probabilistic counter-based broadcast scheme for mobile Ad Hoc networks

Flooding is the simplest mechanism for broadcasting in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), where each node retransmits a given broadcast packet exactly once. Despite its simplicity, flooding can result in high redundant retransmission, contention and collision, a phenomenon collectively referred to as the broadcast storm problem. Several probabilistic broadcast schemes have been proposed to mitigate this inherent phenomenon. However, probabilistic schemes that utilize a random assessment delay (RAD) mechanism suffer from poor performance in terms of end-to-end delay and reachability in congested networks. In this paper, we propose a new adaptive probabilistic counter-based broadcast scheme that enables a mobile node to adapt its RAD to reflect its current local congestion level. Simulation results reveal that this simple adaptation achieves superior performance in terms of saved rebroadcast, end-to-end delay and reachability over existing similar schemes.