floodrouting

Flood routing is a network routing approach in which a message is propagated by a node to all of its neighbors, or to all nodes in the network, with the aim of maximizing the likelihood that the message reaches its destination. It is commonly used in networks with dynamic topologies or limited routing information, such as wireless sensor networks, mobile ad hoc networks, and delay-tolerant networks.

Mechanism and safeguards: When a node receives a message, it forwards a copy to all eligible neighbors unless certain conditions apply, such as having already seen the message or exceeding a time-to-live or hop limit. To avoid unbounded propagation, duplicates are suppressed using unique message identifiers, sequence numbers, or other tracking structures, and forwarding may be restricted by TTL, hold times, or counters.

Variants and context: Blind flooding forwards to all neighbors without topology knowledge. Controlled flooding reduces redundancy through probabilistic forwarding, counters, or area-based rules. In delay-tolerant networks, epidemic routing is a store-and-forward form of flood dissemination where nodes opportunistically forward copies upon contact, increasing delivery probability in intermittent connectivity.

Advantages and limitations: Flood routing offers high delivery probability and simplicity, and it is robust to topology changes. Its main drawbacks are high bandwidth and energy consumption, potential for broadcast storms, and scalability concerns in larger networks.

Applications and related concepts: Flood routing is used in emergency and rescue communications, ad hoc and sensor networks, and some delay-tolerant networking scenarios. Related ideas include broadcasting, flood control, epidemic routing, and gossip protocols.