An All-to-All Broadcast Algorithm with Variable Length Packets in Ad Hoc Networks Using Directional Antennas

The all-to-all broadcast means that nodes can share their own packets to all the other nodes in the network. Most of researches on all-to-all broadcast with the TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) mechanism are based on the fixed length packet model. But in practical scenarios, the packets have the different length according to their contents. Therefore, an all-to-all broadcast algorithm ABVP (An All-to-All Broadcast Protocol for Variable Packet Sizes) was proposed to tackle the variable length packets with a mechanism of eliminating redundant transmissions. However, ABVP leads to the idle resources. In order to solve the problem in ABVP, we propose a low latency solution for all-to-all broadcast of non-fixed length packet (ABNLP). The simulation results by network simulation software OPNET14.5 show that, compared with ABVP algorithm, ABNLP can reduce the all-to-all broadcast delay up to 48% and decrease average number of transmission times. As a result, the overall energy consumption of network is reduced.