Opportunistic Information Dissemination in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks: adaptiveness vs. obliviousness and randomization vs. determinism

In this paper the problem of information dissemination in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET) is studied. The problem is to disseminate a piece of information, initially held by a distinguished source node, to all nodes in a set defined by some predicate. We use a model of MANETs that is well suited for dynamic networks and opportunistic communication. In this model nodes are placed in a plane, in which they can move with bounded speed, and communication between nodes occurs over a collision-prone single channel. In this setup informed and uninformed nodes can be disconnected for some time (bounded by a parameter alpha), but eventually some uninformed node must become neighbor of an informed node and remain so for some time (bounded by a parameter beta). In addition, nodes can start at different times, and they can crash and recover. Under the above framework, we show negative and positive results for different types of randomized protocols, and we put those results in perspective with respect to previous deterministic results.