An Epidemic Model for Information Diffusion in MANETs

摘要

Choosing appropriate information dissemination strategies is crucial in mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) due to the frequent topology changes. Flooding-based approaches like diffusion have a strong similarity with epidemic spreading of diseases. Applying epidemiological models to information diffusion allows the evaluation of such strategies depending on the MANET characteristics, e.g. the node density. In order to choose appropriate strategies at run time, the model should be easily evaluated. In this paper, an epidemic model is developed for a simple information diffusion algorithm based on simulation results. We analytically investigate the impact of node density on information diffusion. The analytical model allows the evaluation at runtime, even on devices with restricted resources, and thus enables mobile nodes to dynamically adapt their diffusion strategies depending on the local node density.