A New Heuristic for the Minimum Connected Dominating Set Problem on Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

Given a graph G = (V, E), a dominating set D is a subset of V such that any vertex not in D is adjacent to at least one vertex in D. Efficient algorithms for computing the minimum connected dominating set (MCDS) are essential for solving many practical problems, such as finding a minimum size backbone in ad hoc networks. Wireless ad hoc networks appear in a wide variety of applications, including mobile commerce, search and discovery, and military battlefield. In this chapter we propose a new efficient heuristic algorithm for the minimum connected dominating set problem. The algorithm starts with a feasible solution containing all vertices of the graph. Then it reduces the size of the CDS by excluding some vertices using a greedy criterion. We also discuss a distributed version of this algorithm. The results of numerical testing show that, despite its simplicity, the proposed algorithm is competitive with other existing approaches.