WSN08-3: Pessimism Is Mostly the Best for the Expanding Ring Search in Wireless Networks

Global flooding and expanding ring search are two commonly used methods in search for an interested object in multi-hop wireless networks. While global flooding is simple, it is not scalable for large networks. To take advantage of expanding ring search, a critical question must be answered: what is the best initial TTL (time-to-live) value for the expanding ring search? Although an accurate answer to this question depends on specific application scenarios and system configurations, via mathematical analysis and numerical validation, we illustrate that pessimistic search (i.e., search with an initial range that just covers the object in the worst case) is mostly the best for expanding ring search.