A distributed multicast routing protocol for ad-hoc (flat) mobile wireless networks

Abstract

"Multicasting" refers to the transmission of the same information to several destinations. We present a loop-free, distributed multicast routing protocol for wireless networks that consist of an arbitrarily large number of nodes, each of which is mobile in an unpredictable manner. Most existing multicast protocols have been developed for non-wireless, stationary networks in which there is an abundance of bandwidth and where intended destinations initiate their connection to the multicast tree. In mobile wireless networks of the future, bandwidth may be limited if not scarce, and in addition to destination initiated connections, there will be purely source-initiated multicasts. We propose a combined multicast routing and resource reservation protocol, which is source-initiated and which uses dynamic frequency allocation to establish, and maintain, connections to desired destinations in the randomly varying topology of ad-hoc wireless networks. Power control is applied to tradeoff between routing delays and frequency reuse factor.