This chapter has presented a per component eventual leader election algorithm for dynamic networks that shows the advantages of all nodes using network topology knowledge for the choice of the leader. To this end, by exchanging messages, every node maintains a local knowledge of the communication graph of connected nodes and exploits such knowledge to elect as the leader the node having the highest closeness centrality. This leader can, therefore, spread information faster over its connected component than flooding algorithms. Considering the random waypoint and a periodic single point of interest mobility models, both versions of the Topology Aware algorithm (based on closeness and degree centralities respectively) and a flooding algorithm with a local topological election criterion, were evaluated on PeerSim [MJ09] simulator.
A performance comparison of the Topology Aware algorithm with a variant of the leader election algorithm of Vasudevan et al. [VKT04] is presented, because their work is a good example of a typical flooding algorithm and is strongly referenced in the literature [RAC08; Ing+13; KW13]. The results confirm the effectiveness of the Topology Aware algorithm and that it outperforms the latter. Both Topology Aware algorithms are more stable than Flooding Degree and the Closeness version has a shorter path to the leader, especially on large components with low movements of nodes. The latter is less sensitive to the component size and sends fewer messages than Flooding Degree. When compared to Flooding Degree, both Topology Aware versions improve the leader stability up to 82% depending on mobility models, sends half as many messages, and nodes reach the leader by 11% shorter paths. It is worth pointing out that the size of messages in Topology Aware could be reduced using compression, for example.
One limitation of the work presented in this chapter is the assumption of reliable channels. Therefore, the second algorithm presented in the next chapter considers eventually reliable communication channels, with interference, collision, and messages loss.