In Equation (7), parameters λ and μ are introduced to adjust the weights between forwarding willingness and forwarding demand. In a practical scenario, how would the protocol perform if a UUV has sufficient energy (high willingness) but is not located on a critical forwarding path (low demand)? What are the specific impacts of different weight combinations on the network performance?
In a practical scenario where a UUV has high energy (high forwarding willingness) but is located in a non-critical area (low forwarding demand), the outcome depends on the weight combination of parameters λ and μ in Equation (7).
If λ (weight for willingness) is set significantly higher than μ (weight for demand), the UUV is more likely to forward the location advertisement even if its neighborhood has little need for the update. This could lead to unnecessary transmissions, increasing energy consumption and channel congestion without improving routing accuracy—especially if the node is far from the movement-affected area.
Conversely, if μ is weighted more heavily, the protocol prioritizes topological relevance. In this case, even a high-energy UUV in a low-demand region would suppress forwarding, conserving energy and reducing redundant traffic while still allowing the advertisement to propagate through more affected parts of the network.
The overall network performance is thus sensitive to the λ/μ balance:
A λ-heavy setting improves information spread and may help in highly uncertain or sparse networks, but at the cost of higher overhead.
A μ-heavy setting enhances energy efficiency and reduces congestion, but risks under-propagating updates if demand estimation is too conservative.
In APID’s design, these weights allow the protocol to be tuned according to mission priorities—whether to emphasize robustness and fresh topology awareness (favor λ) or to maximize energy and spectrum efficiency (favor μ). Proper tuning ensures that advertisements reach nodes that truly need them while avoiding wasteful broadcasts, contributing to the protocol’s high delivery rate and low energy consumption in dynamic multi-UUV swarms.
