Fast Distributed Algorithm for Convergecast in Ad Hoc Geometric Radio Networks

—Wireless ad hoc radio networks have gained a lot of attention in recent years. We consider geometric networks, where nodes are located in a euclidean plane. We assume that each node has a variable transmission range and can learn the distance to the closest neighbor. We also assume that nodes have a special collision detection (CD) capability so that a transmitting node can detect a collision within its transmission range. We study the basic communication problem of collecting data from all nodes called convergecast. Recently, there appeared many new applications such as real-time multimedia, battlefield communications and rescue operations that impose stringent delay requirements on the convergecast time. We measure the latency of convergecast, that is the number of time steps needed to collect the data in any n-node network. We propose a very simple randomized distributed algorithm that has the expected running time O(log n). We also show that this bound is tight and any algorith...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: WONS
• Authors: Alexander Kesselman, Dariusz R. Kowalski
• Keywords: Ad Hoc, Minimum Energy, Time Steps, Wireless Networks, WONS 2005