BEAM: broadcast engagement ACK mechanism to support reliable broadcast transmission in IEEE 802.11 wireless ad hoc networks

To transfer a broadcast packet safely to all nodes in computer networks is an important issue. However, it is a big challenge to transfer broadcast packets over wireless networks reliably due to the unsettled wireless links and the lack of an acknowledgment (ACK) scheme. Therefore, we propose a reliable broadcast scheme named broadcast engagement ACK mechanism (BEAM) which is completely compatible with the IEEE 802.11 protocol. BEAM is in the data link layer rather than the network layer. This is because the overhead of raising the reliability of broadcast transmission in the network layer can be significantly reduced in the data link layer. Simulation results show that BEAM can reach approximately 100% reliability, even in heavy traffic load. Besides, by using the proposed mechanism, the IEEE 802.11 protocol can provide the reliability of unicast transmissions as well as broadcast transmissions and avoid redundant control overhead.