Using Complex Networks Metrics to Mitigate the Broadcast Storm Problem

The broadcast storm problem is characterized by unwanted packet retransmission, causing frequent flooding, contention, and collisions that compromise network performance. This paper presents a new vehicular message dissemination protocol named CN-vP (Complex Network- vehicular Protocol). It is based on the observation and analysis of complex network metrics. In order to mitigate the sending of unnecessary messages, the present work combines probabilistic and delay approaches together with a better knowledge of the network, in particular, the neighboring vehicles of a certain transmitter. Once the three best relays have been chosen by probabilistic calculation, the waiting intervals are estimated, for each retransmission, in order to avoid packet flooding. The analysis of the simulation results shows that the solution developed allows a more assertive decision, thus mitigating the problem of broadcast storm.