On the Set Cover Problem for Broadcasting in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

The set cover problem has been extensively used in broadcast algorithms to model the process of selecting the nodes that should forward a message. Surprisingly, none of the research efforts focuses on solving the set cover problem. Instead, virtually every broadcast scheme uses the well known and generic purpose Greedy Set Cover (GSC) algorithm to tackle the problem. We focus on solving the set cover problem in the context of wireless ad hoc networks and show that providing an efficient solution has a significant performance impact on broadcast algorithms.