Flood and Contain: An Optimized Repeal-Based Flooding Algorithm for Wireless Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks

Flooding is a simple yet reliable way of discovering resources in wireless ad hoc networks such as mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), ad hoc sensors, and recently, IoT networks. However, its operation is resource-intensive, especially in densely populated networks. Several approaches can be found in the literature to reduce the impact of flooding. Many of these approaches follow a repeal-based operation, chasing and stopping further propagation of flooding packets once the target is found. However, repeal-based protocols might end up transmitting even more packets than the original flooding. This work characterizes a maximum repeal-flooding boundary beyond which it is counterproductive to chase the original flooding. We present the Flood and Contain (F&C) algorithm, a method that can quickly establish the maximum repeal-flooding boundary for each node while making no assumptions on the underlying network. F&C’s packet overhead increases linearly with the hop count up to the maximum repeal-flooding boundary, in which case there is no attempt to chase the original flooding. In this latter case, F&C generates only as many packets as the original flooding. Simulations show that, on average, F&C reduces the total flooding overhead (compared to traditional flooding) up to 35 percent once considering all possible destinations, with only a slight increase in resource discovery latency, and it outperforms all other repeal-based protocols, particularly for longer routes.