Energy efficient broadcast in wireless ad hoc networks with Hitch-hiking

In this paper, we have proposed a novel concept called Hitch-hiking in order to reduce the energy consumption of broadcast application for wireless networks. Hitch-hiking takes advantage of the physical layer design that facilitates the combining of partial signals to obtain the complete information. The concept of combining partial signals using maximal ratio combiner [13] has been used to improve the reliability of the communication channel but has never been exploited to reduce energy consumption. We propose a centralized heuristic algorithm called Wireless Multicast with Hitch-hiking (WMH) to construct an energy efficient tree using Hitch-hiking and also present a distributed version of the heuristic. We also evaluate the proposed heuristics through simulation. Simulation results show that Hitch-hiking can reduce the transmission cost of broadcast by as much as 50%. Further, we propose and evaluate a protocol called PSBT that reduces energy consumption of broadcast by eliminating redundancy in receive operation. Finally, we propose an algorithm that takes advantage of both Hitch-hiking and PSBT in conserving energy.