SRMP: A MESH-BASED PROTOCOL FOR MULTICAST COMMUNICATION IN AD HOC NETWORKS

摘要

In this paper, we focus on one critical issue in Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) that is multicast routing. Applying multicast communication in such an environment seems appropriate and useful. In fact, the challenge is to design protocols satisfying some relevant features like efficient bandwidth saving, communication cost reduction, efficient data delivery with unlimited mobility, and dynamic topology support. In this context, we propose a new on-demand multicast routing protocol, named Source Routing-based Multicast Protocol (SRMP). SRMP constructs a mesh to connect group members, using the "forwarding group nodes" concept, thus providing robustness against mobility. It also provides stable paths based on links' availability according to future prediction of links' states, and higher battery life paths tending to power conserving. Multicast routes and group memberships are obtained on-demand to use efficiently network resources, avoiding channel overhead and improving scalability. The mechanism of source routing proposed in Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) unicast protocol is also applied in a modified manner.