A Cross-Layer Design for Broadcast Algorithm in MANETs

In mobile ad hoc networks, due to the dynamic nature of ad hoc networks, many unicast and multicast protocols depend on broadcasting mechanism to finish control and route establishment functionality. A straightforward broadcasting, however, will be very inefficient and costly and easily result to the broadcast storm problem. In this paper, we propose the JDCT-C algorithm. It is a distributed algorithm and adopts cross-layer design. According to the receiving signal strength from the physical layer and neighboring nodes information from the network layer, it decides whether a node can retransmit the message or not without needing any global information and control messages and dynamically adapts the backoff defer in the MAC layer. The simulation experiments have demonstrated the efficiency of the proposed broadcast algorithm meanwhile the broadcast storm problem is significantly alleviated