Broadcasting Over Switched Single Beam Antennas

Overview

In switched single beam directional antenna model, broadcasting is achieved by sequentially steering the antenna beam across all pre-defined directions resulting in a sweeping delay. This paper studies suggested techniques to alleviate broadcast storm problems in ad hoc networks with directional antennas, point out their shortcomings, and propose two new schemes, namely, the New Enhanced Directional Flooding (NEDF) and the Probabilistic Relay Broadcasting (PRB). The paper thoroughly compares the performance of these protocols with present directional broadcast schemes including omni directional flooding over six, twelve and eighteen antenna beam models. The results indicate that directional broadcasting provides excellent connectivity in the regions of sparse density as compared to omni directional broadcasting.