Improving network lifetime by dynamic power control in ad hoc broadcast networks

Abstract

The efficient energy utilization in an ad hoc wireless broadcast network in which each mobile node has limited power supply is a critical issue. Existing energy-efficient algorithms show great performance in broadcast power saving, but they pay attention to only the energy saving, not energy utilization. As most mobile nodes are battery-operated, any node can be out of power until it is recharged. It will be crucial problem in civil or military situations that a battery-exhausted node cannot play a roll as a relay point any more and cause the communication failure in the designated broadcasting tree. In such a network, the algorithm that maximizes the energy utilization to extend the network lifetime is more important than the one that just minimize the overall power consumption. We present a novel power-efficient broadcast algorithm which effectively extends the network lifetime in this paper. The unbalance of power consumption (UPC) and the static power control are the main causes of shortening the network lifetime. And most algorithms for energy efficiency have those problems, so they are not that efficient in the network lifetime. Dominant Pruning by Dynamic Power control (DPDP) soothes the UPC with dynamic alternation of different powered relay nodes and use high battery-powered nodes for relaying with dynamic power control and it outperforms the other algorithms remarkably in network lifetime.