A Connected Dominating Set Based on Connectivity and Energy in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

A connected dominating set (CDS) has been proposed as a virtual backbone for routing in wireless ad hoc networks. Ad hoc networks offer new routing paradigms. Therefore, the routing operation needs a broadcast algorithm. Broadcasting in an ad hoc network is still an open issue. The main focus here will be on optimizing the energy and the bandwidth utilization for packet diffusion. In this paper, we describe the Connected Dominating Set-Energy Protocol (CDSEP) for mobile ad hoc networks to optimize broadcast in the network. The key concept used in this protocol is a new distributed algorithm which computes the connected dominating set (CDS) based on node energy and node connectivity. In the CDSEP protocol, the CDS nodes are selected to forward broadcast packets during the flooding process, and the information flooded in the network through these CDS is also about the CDS. Thus, a second optimization is achieved by minimizing the contents of the control packets flooded in the network. Hence, only a small subset of links with the nodes is declared instead of all the links and the nodes. Our simulation experiment results demonstrate that the CDSEP responds well to scaling in terms of broadcast control packet and energy consumption.