Distributed broadcast scheduling in mobile ad hoc networks with unknown topologies

Broadcasting is a fundamental communication task in mobile ad hoc networks, and minimizing broadcasting time (or latency) is crucial to the performance of many applications. Extensive studies have been conducted on the minimization of broadcasting time in the context of radio networks, which are usually modeled as general graphs. In this paper, we consider how to achieve this goal with distributed algorithms based on a more realistic (and restricted) network model. We propose a randomized algorithm that completes broadcasting in O(D log(n/D) + log² n) time, where n is the number of nodes in the network and D the eccentricity (maximum distance from the source node to any other node). Compared with a previous optimal algorithm that achieves the same result for general networks, our algorithm obviates the need to know the network eccentricity D beforehand. We also propose a deterministic broadcasting algorithm that works in O(n) time, which is in contrast with the best known result of O{n log² D) for general networks.