k-Strongly Connected m-Dominating and Absorbing Set in Wireless Ad Hoc

Networks with Unidirectional Links

Ravi Tiwari Tania Mishra Yingshu Li My T. Thai

{rtiwari, tmishra}@cise.ufl.edu C.S. Department, C.I.S.E Department
C.I.S.E Department Georgia State University University of Florida
University of Florida Atlanta, GA, 30303 Gainesville, FL 32611
Gainesville, FL 32611 yli@cs.gsu.edu mythai@cise.ufl.edu

Abstract As a result, a virtual backbone has been proposed as

Since there is no fixed infrastructure or centralized
management in wireless ad hoc networks (WANs), vir-
tual backbone has been proposed as the routing infras-
tructure to alleviate the broadcasting storm problem [6].
Because the virtual backbone nodes need to carry other
node’s traffic and subject to failure, it is desirable to
construct a fault tolerant virtual backbone. Most recent
research has studied this problem in homogeneous net-
works. In this paper, we propose solutions for efficient
construction of a fault-tolerant virtual backbone where
the wireless nodes have different transmission ranges.
Such a network can be modeled as a disk graph where
any link between two nodes is either unidirectional or
bidirectional. Since the graph is directed, we formu-
late the fault tolerant virtual backbone problem as a k-
Strongly Connected m-Dominating and Absorbing Set
problem (k-m-SCDAS). We first propose two heuristics,
one to construct a 1-m-SCDAS and the other one to ob-
tain a k-1-SCDAS in a directed graph. We next combine
these two approaches to develop a general construction
of k-m-SCDAS. Through extensive simulations, we com-
pare the performance of these proposed algorithms.
1 Introduction
In wireless ad hoc networks (WANs), there is no fixed
or predefined infrastructure. Nodes in WANs commu-
nicate via shared medium, either through a single hop
communication or multi-hop relays. In order to enable
data transfer in such networks, all the wireless nodes
need to frequently flood control messages, thus caus-
ing a lot of redundancy, contentions, and collisions [6].
the routing infrastructure of a network for efficient rout-
ing, broadcasting and collision avoidance protocols [14].
With virtual backbones, routing messages are only ex-
changed between the backbone nodes, instead of being
broad casted to all the nodes. With the help of virtual
backbone, routing is easier and can adapt quickly to net-
work topology changes. It has also shown that virtual
backbones could dramatically reduce routing overhead
[15]. Furthermore, using virtual backbone as forward-
ing nodes can efficiently reduce the energy consump-
tion, which is also one of the critical issue in WANs.
Since the virtual backbone nodes need to carry other
node’s traffic, fault tolerance must be considered. Un-
fortunately, virtual backbone is often very vulnerable
due to frequent node failure and link failure, which is
inherent in wireless ad hoc networks. Therefore, con-
structing a fault tolerant virtual backbone that continues
to function during node or link failure is an important
research problem, which has not studied sufficiently. In
[5, 1], the authors considered this problem in Unit Disk
Graph (UDG) [16], in which all nodes have the same
transmission ranges.
However, transmission ranges of all nodes in a net-
work are not necessarily equal. Nodes in a network may
have different power due to difference in functionali-
ties, power control to alleviate collisions, topology con-
trol to achieve a certain level of connectivity. For ex-
ample, in heterogeneous networks, gateway nodes may
have higher power than other nodes. Or in some topol-
ogy controlled networks, each node may adjust its trans-
mission range differently to obtain certain optimization
goals. All these scenarios result into a WAN with dif-
ferent transmission ranges. Such a network can be mod-
eled as a Disk Graph (DG) G. Note that G is directed,

1
consisting of both bidirectional and unidirectional links.
Recently, we have studied the fault tolerant virtual back-
bone problem in DG, where we only considered the bidi-
rectional links [21]. To the best of our knowledge, none
of recent research work has considered the fault toler-
ant virtual backbone problem in heterogeneous networks
with unidirectional links.
In this paper, we formulate the fault tolerant virtual
backbone problem in heterogeneous networks as a k-
Strongly Connected m-Dominating and Absorbing Set
problem (k-m-SCDAS). Since the problem of finding
a virtual backbone in DG is NP-hard [17], we can ex-
pect that the k-m-SCDAS is also NP-hard. We therefore
propose two heuristics to solve the 1-m-SCDAS and k-
1-SCDAS problems. Finally, we extend the these two
heuristics to construct a k-m-SCDAS for any value of k
and m.
The contributions of this paper are as follows:
• Three problems are introduced related to fault tol-
erance of virtual backbone in a wireless ad hoc
network with nodes having different transmission
ranges. (a) The 1-m-SCDAS problem, (b) The k-
1-SCDAS problem, and (c) The k-m-SCDAS prob-
lem
• Three heuristics are proposed for solving the above
mentioned problems.
• Rigorous simulation experiments are done to ana-
lyze the performance and correctness of these algo-
rithms.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Sec-
tion 2 describes the preliminaries and the problem defi-
nitions. Section 3 presents the related work on fault tol-
erant virtual backbone problem. The 1-m-SCDAS and
k-1-SCDAS algorithms are proposed in Section 4 and
Section 5 respectively. In section 6, we extend the re-
sults to k-m-SCDAS. Section 7 provides the simulation
results and finally Section 8 concludes the paper.
2 Preliminaries and Problem Definitions
2.1 Preliminaries
Let a directed graph G = (V, E) represent a network
where V consists of all nodes in a network and E repre-
sents all the communication links.
For any vertex v ∈ V , the incoming neighborhood
of v is defined as N − (v) = {u ∈ V | (u, v) ∈ E}, and
the outgoing neighborhood of v is defined as N + (v) =
{u ∈ V | (v, u) ∈ E}.
Likewise, for any vertex v ∈ V , the closed incoming
neighborhood of v is defined as N − [v] = N − (v)∪{v},
and the closed outgoing neighborhood of v is defined
as N + [v] = N + (v) ∪ {v}.
A subset S ⊆ V is called a dominating S set (DS) of
G iff S ∪ N + (S) = V where N + (S) = u∈S N + (u).
A subset S ⊆ V is called an independent dominat-
ing set (IDS) of G iff S∪N + (S) = V and S∩N + (S) =
∅.
Given a subset S ⊆ V , an induced subgraph of S,
denoted as G[S], obtained by deleting all vertices in the
set V − S from G.
A graph G is said to be strongly connected if for
any pair of nodes u, v ∈ V , there exists a directed path
between them. Likewise, a subset S ⊆ V is called a
strongly connected set if G[S] is strongly connected.
A subset S ⊆ V is called a Strongly Connected
Dominating Set (SCDS) if S is a DS and G[S] is
strongly connected. S is called a Strongly Connected
Dominating and Absorbing Set (SCDAS) if S is an
SCDS and for all nodes u ∈ / S, N + (u) ∩ S 6= ∅.
2.2 Problem Definition
In this paper, we study the fault tolerant virtual back-
bone in a network with different transmission ranges. In
this case, a wireless ad hoc network can be modeled us-
ing a directed graph G = (V, E). The nodes in V are
located in the two dimensional Euclidean plane and each
node vi ∈ V has a transmission range ri ∈ [rmin , rmax ].
A directed edge (vi , vj ) ∈ E if and only if d(vi , vj ) ≤ ri
where d(vi , vj ) denotes the Euclidean distance between
vi and vj . Such graphs are called Disk Graphs (DG). An
edge (vi , vj ) is bidirectional if both (vi , vj ) and (vj , vi )
are in E, i.e., d(vi , vj ) ≤ min{ri , rj }. Otherwise, it is
called a unidirectional link. Note that in this paper, we
consider both bidirectional and unidirectional links.
Under such a model, we formulate the fault tolerant
virtual backbone problem as follows:
Definition 1 k-Strongly Connected m-Dominating
and Absorbing Set problem (k-m-SCDAS): Given a
directed graph G = (V, E) representing a network and
two positive integers k and m, find a subset C ⊆ V with
a minimum size and satisfying the following conditions:
(i) C is an SCDAS, (ii) G[C] is k-connected, (iii) each
node not in C is dominated by at least m nodes in C,
and (iv) each node not in C is absorbed by at least m
nodes in C.
3 Related Work
Although the virtual backbone problem has been
extensively studied in general undirected graphs and
UDGs [7]-[13], the construction of virtual backbone in
WANs with different transmission ranges is being ex-
plored to some extent only recently. In [18] and [19],
the authors extended their marking process to networks
with unidirectional links to find an SCDAS. However,
the paper does not present any approximation ratio. Re-
cently, we have proposed the constant approximation al-
gorithms for SCDAS problem [2, 3, 4, 20]. Yet we have
not considered the fault tolerant aspect.
The construction of fault tolerant virtual backbone in
general undirected graphs is also one of the newly stud-
ied problems. Dai et al. addressed the problem of con-
structing k-connected k-dominating set (k-CDS) [5] in
UDG. In [1] Feng et al. introduced the problem of con-
structing 2-1-CDS in UDGs and proposed a constant ap-
proximation problem. Note that the solutions of these
two papers are applicable to undirected graphs. In ad-
dition, the authors just considered a special case of the
general problem, where k = m or k = 2 and m = 1.
Recently, we have considered the fault tolerant virtual
backbone in heterogeneous networks with only bidirec-
tional links [21]. We proposed a constant approximation
algorithm for any value of k and m.
In summary, no work has considered a k-m-SCDAS
in heterogeneous networks with unidirectional links for
any value of k and m.
4 The 1-m-SCDAS Algorithm
The main idea of 1-m-SCDAS algorithm is as fol-
lows: (1) Construct an SCDS C and extend C to an SC-
DAS. (2) Iteratively find new disjoint dominating sets
(DS) and augment them to C. At each iteration after
augmenting the new DS to C, extend C to SCDAS. The
illustration of 1-m-SCDAS is shown in Algorithm 2.
The algorithm has two stages. In the first stage,
we used our MSN SCDS algorithm proposed in [3] to
construct the SCDS C, and then the Ext SCDS algo-
rithm proposed in [3], to extend SCDS C to SCDAS.
The MSN SCDS algorithm first constructs the DS and
then strongly connects all the nodes in DS using min-
imum number of Steiner nodes. The Ext SCDS algo-
rithm then extends the SCDS formed by MSN SCDS
to SCDAS. For the convenience of readers, we present
the Ext SCDS algorithm in Algorithm 1. At the sec-
ond stage, we iteratively find dominating sets DSi in
the remaining graph G − (DS1 ∪ DS2 ∪, . . . , ∪DSi−1 )
by choosing the node with biggest transmission range
and deleting its neighbors until there is no node exist.
Next, we augment DSi to 1-(i − 1)-SCDAS at current
iteration and then we run Ext SCDS on it to form 1-i-
SCDAS. After running the second stage m − 1 times,
the resulting C is 1-m-SCDAS.
Algorithm 1 Extended SCDS (Ext SCDS)
1: INPUT: A directed disk graph G = (V, E) and an
SCDS S. Note that all the nodes in S are either
black or blue and the rest of the nodes are white
2: OUTPUT: A Strongly Connected Dominating and
Absorbing Set (SCDAS) C
3: for All u ∈ S do
4: All nodes v ∈ N − (u) that are white, color them
grey.
5: end for
6: while there exists a white node do
7: Find the grey node v having maximum number of
white nodes in N − (v), color v blue and color all
the white nodes in N − (v) grey
8: end while
Algorithm 2 Find a 1-m-Strongly Connected Dominat-
ing and Absorbing Set
1: INPUT: An m-connected directed graph G =
(V, E)
2: OUTPUT: A 1-m-SCDAS C of G
3: Construct a 1-1-SCDS C of graph G, using
MSN SCDS algorithm proposed in [3]
4: Extend C to 1-1-SCDAS using Ext SCDS algo-
rithm proposed in [3]
5: for i = 2 to m do
6: Find DSi in G − (DS1 ∪ DS2 ∪ . . . ∪ DSi−1)
7: C = C ∪ DSi
8: Extend C to become 1-i-SCDAS using
Ext SCDS algorithm proposed in [3]
9: end for
10: Return C, where C is the 1-m-SCDAS
5 The k-1-SCDAS Algorithm
In the previous section we discussed an efficient
heuristic to construct the 1-m-SCDAS, in which each
node not in 1-m-SCDAS is dominated and absorbed by
at least m different nodes in 1-m-SCDAS. In this section
we improve the fault tolerance of an SCDAS by studying
the k-1-Strongly Connected Dominating and Absorbing
Set (k-1-SCDAS), which can tolerate (k − 1) nodes fail-
ure. We also propose an efficient heuristic as Algorithm
3, to construct k-1-SCDAS.
The k-1-SCDAS algorithm is illustrated in Algo-
rithm 3. Given the graph G = (V, E), the algorithm
works as follows: First, an SCDAS is constructed using
MSN SCDS and Ext SCDS algorithms proposed in [3].
As a result, we have a connected dominating and ab-
sorbing set C. Now on the graph G we run Depth First
Search and delete all the edges traversed which connects
the nodes in C. The graph G is now reversed to form
a graph G0 . On the graph G0 , we run the Depth First
Search and delete all the edges traversed, which con-
nects the nodes in C. Reverse the graph G0 back to form
graph G. Doing this, the graph induced by the dominat-
ing and absorbing set C i.e. G[C] is disconnected. Now
again, this graph G(C) is made connected and absorb-
ing by using the MSN SCDS and Ext SCDS algorithms
[3], so that the dominating and absorbing set C becomes
connected dominating and absorbing set. In this pro-
cess more blue nodes are added to C. This process is
repeated for k − 1 number of times, and it results in the
formation of k connected dominating and absorbing set
C.
Algorithm 3 Find a k-1-Strongly Connected Dominat-
ing and Absorbing Set
1: INPUT: k connected connected graph G = (V, E)
2: OUTPUT: A k-1-SCDAS C of G
3: Construct an SCDAS C in the given graph G using
MSN SCDS and Ext SCDS algorithms proposed in
[3]
4: Initialize k 0 = 2
5: while k 0 ≥ k do
6: Run Depth First Search (DFS) on G and delete all
the edges traversed, which connects nodes in C
7: Reverse the edges of G to form G0
8: Run Depth First Search (DFS) on G0 and delete
all the edges traversed which connects the nodes
on C.
9: Reverse the edges of G0 back to form G
10: Find out an SCDS in G by adding more blue
nodes in C and extend it to SCDAS
11: k0 = k0 + 1
12: end while
13: Return C, where C is the k-1-SCDAS
6 Extended Result
In the above two sections, we discussed two spe-
cial cases of the k-m-SCDAS problem, that are 1-m-
SCDAS, which increases the fault tolerance in terms of
dominance, and k-1-SCDAS, which improves the fault
tolerance in terms of connectivity among the virtual
backbone nodes. In this section we take the advantages
of the properties of 1-m-SCDAS and k-1-SCDAS, and
extend the results to k-m-SCDAS.
6.1 Solution to k-m-SCDAS
The main idea of constructing a k-m-SCDAS is as
follows: (i) use 1-m-SCDAS algorithm to construct a
1-m-SCDAS C, (ii) use k-1-SCDAS algorithm to aug-
ment more nodes to C, obtained in the previous step to
become k-m-SCDAS.
There are two issues to be noticed: (1) The input
graph must be p connected, where p ≥ max(k, m). (2)
Note that if k ≥ m, then there is no problem, otherwise
first the 1-k-SCDAS will be constructed and then 1-m-
SCDAS algorithm will run to construct a k-m-SCDAS,
in which the connectivity of the virtual backbone is pre-
served even after k − 1 virtual backbone node failures,
and the dominance is preserved even after the failure of
m − 1 virtual backbone nodes.
7 Simulation Results
In this section, we evaluate their performance through
simulation results. We conducted the simulation to com-
pare the performance (in terms of the size of CDS)
of four algorithms: Ext SCDS proposed in [3], 1-m-
SCDAS, k-1-SCDAS and k-m-SCDAS. The improve-
ment of 1-m-SCDAS is that, every node not in CDS is
dominated and absorbed by at least m nodes. Hence,
the dominance of CDS sustains even if (m − 1) CDS
nodes fail. The improvement of k-1-SCDAS is that any
two nodes in CDS are connected by k different disjoint
paths, hence the strong connectivity of CDS nodes sus-
tains even after k − 1 number of CDS node failures.
The improvement of k-m-SCDAS is that it combines
the characteristic of 1-m-SCDAS and k-1-SCDAS, and
so in this case any two nodes in CDS are connected by
k different paths and all the nodes not in CDS are dom-
inated and absorbed by m different dominating nodes.
Moreover we are interested in comparing the size of
CDS for SCDAS, 1-m-SCDAS, k-1-SCDAS, and k-m-
SCDAS, when k = 2 and m = 2. We study three net-
work parameters that may affect the algorithm perfor- The simulation results are shown in Figure 1(a) and
mance: Figure 1(b). It is seen in the Figure 1(a), as the num-
ber of nodes increase the number of CDS nodes for all
1. N the number of nodes in the network the four algorithms increases, and after a certain value
2. R the transmission ratio, i.e. R = Rmax /Rmin of number of nodes the CDS nodes for all the four al-
gorithms fluctuates very little. The reason behind this
3. The network density, i.e. the number of nodes per may be, when there is less number of nodes in the net-
unit area. work, the nodes are distant from each other. Hence,
more nodes are required to dominated and absorb all
7.1 Effect of Number of Nodes the nodes in the network. Where as when the number
of nodes increases the nodes come closed to each other
and hence, less number of nodes can dominate and ab-
30
1-1-SCDAS sorb all the nodes in the network. It can be seen in the
25
1-2-SCDAS fig 1(a), when the number of nodes is between 10 − 80
2-1-SCDAS
there is an increase in the size of CDS, but when number
Number of CDS nodes

2-2-SCDAS
20 of nodes increases further, there is very little variation in
the number of CDS nodes.
15
The Figure 1(a) also shows that for every value of
10 number of nodes the size of the CDS for 2-2-SCDAS
is maximum and the size of the CDS of 1-1-SCDAS is
5
minimum. But an interesting thing to be noticed here
0 is that generally for all values of number of nodes the
20 40 60 80 100 120 140 size of CDS for 1-2-SCDAS is smaller than the size of
Number of nodes in the network
CDS for 2-1-SCDAS, but for few values of number of
(a) Compare the size of CDS
nodes the size of CDS nodes for 2-1-SCDAS is smaller
2 than the size of CDS for 1-2-SCDAS as it happens when
1-2-SCDAS/1-1-SCDAS
the number of nodes is 10 and 60. This shows for these
2-1-SCDAS/1-2-SCDAS
2-2-SCDAS/2-1-SCDAS
cases it requires more number of CDS nodes to increase
1.5
the dominance, then increasing the connectivity of the
CDS. This may be because when a dominating node is
Ratio

1 added into the graph then all the nodes which it is domi-
nating has to be absorbed, so more nodes may be added
to the CDS to fulfill this condition which may increase
0.5
the size of the CDS for 1-2-SCDAS, and for some net-
work topologies the number of nodes added to increase
0 the domination may exceed the number of nodes added
20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Number of nodes in the network to increase the connectivity.
(b) Ratios The Figure 1(b) shows the ratio of 1-2-SCDAS to 1-
1-SCDAS, ratio of 1-2-SCDAS to 2-1-SCDAS, and ra-
Figure 1. Effects of Number of Nodes in tio of 2-1-SCDAS to 2-2-SCDAS. The Figure reveals
the Network that the ratio of 1-2-SCDAS to 1-1-SCDAS lies between
1.15 and 1.55, this shows there is a 15% to 55% over-
head for increasing the domination of the CDS. The Fig-
To evaluate the performance of the four algorithms ure 1(b) also reveals that the ratio of 2-1-SCDAS to 1-2-
under different number of nodes, we deployed N SCDAS lies between 0.714 to 1.25, but mostly the ratio
nodes to a fixed area of 1, 000m x 1, 000m. N is above 1.0. This shows that it take more nodes to en-
changed from 10 to 150 with an increment of 5. Each hance the connectivity of the CDS than enhancing the
node vi randomly chose the transmission range Ri ∈ domination. But sometimes for some network topolo-
[Rmin , Rmax ], where Rmax = 600m and Rmin = gies the reverse is possible. Finally the Figure 1(b) also
200m. For each value of N , 100 network instances were reveals that the ratio of 2-2-SCDAS to 2-1-SCDAS lies
investigated and the results were averaged. between 1.071 to 1.4. This shows there is a predictable
and a reasonable overhead incurred in terms of increased the number of CDS nodes in all the four algorithm de-
number of CDS nodes, in order to increase the domina- creases. This is because as the transmission range ratio
tion and the connectivity of the CDS. increase the nodes in the initial dominating nodes have
larger transmission range and so less number of nodes
7.2 Effect of Transmission Range Ratio dominates all the nodes in the graph.
The Figure 2(a) also shows that for every value of
transmission range ratio, the CDS of 2-2-SCDAS has
40
1-1-SCDAS
the maximum size and the CDS of 1-1-SCDAS has the
35 1-2-SCDAS minimum size. But here we notice that the CDS size for
2-1-SCDAS 2-1-SCDAS is always greater than the size of CDS of 1-
Number of CDS nodes

30
2-2-SCDAS
2-SCDAS, this endorses our inference that, connectivity
25
uses more extra CDS nodes than dominance. The Figure
20
2(b) shows the ratio of 1-2-SCDAS to 1-1-SCDAS, ratio
15 of 1-2-SCDAS to 2-1-SCDAS, and ratio of 2-1-SCDAS
10 to 2-2-SCDAS. The Figure 2(b) reveals that the ratio
5
between 1-2-SCDAS and 1-1-SCDAS lies in the range
1.09 to 1.25, this range is comparatively smaller than
0
800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 the range obtained while studying the effect of number
Area width of the network of nodes. This show that as the transmission range ra-
(a) Compare the Size of CDS tio R increase lesser number of nodes are require to in-
crease the dominance of the CDS, here the extra number
2
1-2-SCDS/1-1-SCDAS of CDS nodes needed varies from 9% to 25% . The Fig-
2-1-SCDAS/1-2-SCDAS ure 2(b) also shows that the ratio of 2-1-SCDAS to 1-2-
2-2-SCDAS/2-1-SCDAS
1.5 SCDAS lies in the range 1.0 to 1.3, this shows that to
enhance the connectivity more nodes are need in com-
parison to enhancing the dominance. Finally the ratio
Ratio

1
of 2-2-SCDAS and 2-1-SCDAS lies in the range 1.06 to
1.20. This show as the CDS becomes denser lesser CDS
0.5 nodes are needed to enhance the dominance, as it take
6 − 20 percent more CDS nodes to increase the domi-
0
nance of the CDS of 2-1-SCDAS to the dominance of
800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 CDS of 2-2-SCDAS, where as, it takes 9 − 25 percent
Area width of the network
more CDS nodes to increase the dominance of the CDS
(b) Ratio of 1-1-SCDAS to the dominance of CDS of 1-2-SCDAS.

Figure 2. Effects of Transmission Range 7.3 Effect of Network Density

Ratio
We also conducted simulations to compare the per-
formance of all the four algorithms when changing the
transmission range ratio R to see how it affects the size
of the obtained CDS. To change R, we fixed Rmin =
200m and changed Rmax from 200m to 800m with an
increment of 10. In this experiment we randomly de-
ployed 100 nodes into a fixed area of size 1, 000m x
1, 000m. For each network instance, we ran the test for
100 times, and the results were averaged.
The Figure 2(a) and Figure 2(b) show the simulation
results. Figure 2(a) compares the performance of four
algorithms in terms of the CDS size. It is seen in the
Figure 2(a) that as the transmission range ratio increases
Simulations were also carried out to compare the per-
formance of all four algorithms when changing the net-
work density as well as to see how this change affects the
size of the CDS. To change the network density, we fixed
the number of nodes N = 100 and increased the area
from 800m x 800m to 1, 600m x 1, 600m with an incre-
ment of 50. In the experiment we generated 100 nodes in
an area with size changing as described. Each node ran-
domly chooses a transmission range in [Rmin , Rmax ],
where Rmin = 200m and Rmax = 600m. For each
network instance we ran the simulation for 100 times
and the results were averaged.
The Figure 3(a) and Figure 3(b) shows the simulation
results. The Figure 3(a) compares the performance of
 40 ratio 1-2-SCDAS and 1-1-SCDAS lies between 1.10 to
1-1-SCDAS
35 1-2-SCDAS
1.26 i.e. it may require to add 10 − 26 percent more
2-1-SCDAS nodes to increase the dominance of the CDS of 1-1-
Number of CDS nodes

30
2-2-SCDAS SCDAS. The ratio of 2-1-SCDAS and 1-2-SCDAS lies
25
between 0.99 − 1.46, this is a huge variation, but al-
20 most every time except once the ratio is always above
15 1.0. This endorses our earlier inference that connec-
10
tivity needs more CDS nodes than dominance. Finally
the ratio of 2-2-SCDAS and 2-1-SCDAS lies between
5
1.074 − 1.21, which further endorses our earlier infer-
0
800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300
ence that, it needs less number of extra CDS nodes to
Area width of the network increase the dominance when the CDS is denser. As
(a) Compare the CDS Size the ratio of 1-2-SCDAS and 1-1-SCDAS lies between
1.10 − 1.26, whereas the ratio of 2-2-SCDAS and 2-1-
2
1-2-SCDS/1-1-SCDAS SCDAS lies between 1.074 − 1.21. And the CDS of
2-1-SCDAS/1-2-SCDAS 2-1-SCDAS is denser than the CDS of 1-1-SCDAS.
2-2-SCDAS/2-1-SCDAS
1.5

8 Conclusion
Ratio

In this paper, we introduced three problems related

0.5
0
800 900 1000 1100
Area width of the network
(b) Ratio
Figure 3. Effects of the Network Density
four algorithms in terms of the CDS size. It is seen in the
Figure 3(a) as the size of the network increases i.e. the
network density decreases then there is an increase in the
number of CDS nodes for all the four algorithms. This is
because as the network density decreases the nodes gets
distant to each other and as a result of which more CDS
nodes are required to dominate and absorb all the nodes
in the network.
The Figure 3(a) also shows that for every value of
transmission range ratio, the CDS of 2-2-SCDAS has
the maximum size and the CDS of 1-1-SCDAS has the
minimum size. An interesting thing to be notice here
is that when the area size is 850m x 850m the size
of 1-2-SCDAS is 10.34 and the size of 2-1-SCDAS is
10.32. Hence, this shows that for some topologies the
domination may take more CDS nodes in comparison
to the connectivity, though it rarely happens. The Fig-
ure 3(b) shows the ratio of 1-2-SCDAS to 1-1-SCDAS,
ratio of 1-2-SCDAS to 2-1-SCDAS, and ratio of 2-1-
SCDAS to 2-2-SCDAS. The Figure 3(b) reveals that the
to fault tolerant virtual backbone in a wireless ad hoc
network in which the nodes have different transmission
ranges. These problems are the 1-m-SCDAS problem,
1200 1300 the k-1-SCDAS problem and the k-m-SCDAS problem.
We modeled the network as a directed graph, in which
both unidirectional and bidirectional links are consid-
ered. We proposed algorithms as solutions to these three
problems respectively and evaluated their performances
through rigorous simulation. The experiments show that
the fault tolerance of a virtual backbone can be im-
proved with reasonable and predictable overhead. Also
by adding few more nodes, a virtual backbone becomes
more fault tolerant in term of domination and connec-
tivity. In our future work, we plan to devise distributed
algorithms based on these solutions for an easy imple-
mentation in practice.
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