Dynamic Clustering Based Time Efficient Protocols for Neighbor Discovery in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Neighbor Discovery (ND) is a basic and crucial step for initializing wireless ad hoc networks. A fast, precise, and dynamic clustering based time efficient protocols has significant importance to subsequent operations in wireless networks. However, many existing protocols have high probabilities to generate idle slots in their neighbor discovering processes, which prolongs the executing duration, and thus compromises their performance. In this paper, we propose a novel randomized protocol FRIEND, a pre-handshaking neighbor discovery protocol, to initialize synchronous full duplex wireless ad hoc networks. By introducing a prehandshaking strategy to help each node be aware of activities of its neighborhood, we significantly reduce the probabilities of generating idle slots and collisions. Moreover, with the development of single channel full duplex communication technology [1, 2], we further decrease the processing time needed in FRIEND, and construct the first full duplex neighbor discovery protocol. Our theoretical analysis proves that FRIEND can decrease the duration of ND by up to 48% in comparison to the classical ALOHA-like protocols [3, 4]. In addition, we propose HD-FRIEND for half duplex networks and variants of FRIEND for multi-hop networks and duty cycled networks. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that FRIEND can adapt to various scenarios and significantly decrease the duration of ND.