6533b832fe1ef96bd129a381

RESEARCH PRODUCT

A low power protocol to broadcast real-time data traffic in a clustered ad hoc network

subject

description

Energy saving is an extremely important design criteria for mobile ad hoc networks. We present the intra-cluster data-dissemination protocol (Icdp). The Icdp is used to group nodes around a special one, called the cluster leader (CL). The CL centralizes the power management mechanism and acts as a proxy for data transfer between the cluster and the rest of the nodes in the region. When a cluster node enables the power management it goes into "sleep" mode, to minimize power consumption. The CL buffers data frames for power saving stations and delivers them on the stations' request. We periodically distribute the cluster leader role among all the nodes inside the cluster, to not overload a single node. We evaluate the performance benefits of this proposal by simulating the use of our protocol to distribute real-time video in a bounded region.