Broadcasting in hybrid ad hoc networks

In this paper we consider hybrid ad hoc networks, which are composed of two kinds of nodes, regular ones and nodes with additional capabilities. For example, multi-hop cellular and wireless Internet networks consist of static or mobile nodes, and fixed access points which provide an access to an infrastructure. In such a network, each node may use direct or multihop link to connect to an access point, allowing a greater mobility. The goal of this paper is to provide protocols for broadcasting data in such an environment, by taking advantage of the presence of access points to optimize the broadcast, either from an energy consumption or from a latency point of view. We thus consider known protocols for pure ad hoc networks and adapt them to hybrid ad hoc networks. These protocols are the Blind Flooding, the Neighbor Elimination Scheme, the Multipoint Relay protocol and the generalized Self-Pruning Rule (algorithm that elects some dominant nodes to relay messages). We give some experimental data for these modified protocols to compare them to their original version, so that we are able to emphasize the gain obtained thanks to our proposed modifications.