A dynamic threshold-based probabilistic scheme for broadcasting in ad hoc networks

Broadcasting is a fundamental operation in a mobile ad hoc network (MANETs) protocols. The flooding is the simplest mechanism used for message broadcasting in MANETs in which a message is rebroadcasted, by each node, exactly once. Despite its simplicity, it can cause high redundancy retransmission that could generate messages contention and collision. However, the issue is finding a way to minimize the number of redundantly received messages in order to save transmission energy while maintaining good latency and high reachability. Several enhanced versions of the flooding mechanism have been proposed to alleviate this issue by inhibiting some nodes from rebroadcasting. The selection of relay nodes is a major design consideration in all enhanced versions. In this paper, a dynamic threshold-based probabilistic scheme (DTP) is introduced. In DTP, the threshold value at the nodes is dynamically adjusted using only information from neighboring nodes. Results are presented and show the efficiency of DTP in terms of reachability, saved rebroadcast, and average latency.