Ad hoc routing protocols with multipoint relaying

Multipoint relays have been introduced in the proactive protocol OLSR in order to optimize the flooding overhead of control traffic. In this paper we show that multipoint relaying can be used as well in reactive protocols in order to save overhead in route discovery. To this end we specify a very simple reactive protocol called MPRDV (Multipoint Relay Distance Vector protocol). In MPRDV route requests and route replies are all flooded via Multipoint Relays (MPR). They both open routes to their originators. Route repairs are performed by new route request flooding. We show with simulation that the use of MPR flooding does not lead to the control traffic explosion that we experience with basic reactive protocol in presence of frequent route discovery and failure. MPR provide also another optimization since it tends to offer optimal routes to data packets and so increases the protocol performances.