A multicast protocol for mobile adhoc networks

Abstract

An adhoc network is a collection of wireless, mobile nodes, dynamically forming a temporary network without the use of any existing infrastructure or centralized administration. In the recent years a variety of new, unicast, routing protocols, targeted at this environment have been developed. But in case of multicast routing protocols, there has been very little development. This paper considers the problem of multi-cast routing in adhoc networks. We propose a new protocol for multi-cast routing. This protocol offers quick adaptation to dynamic link conditions and low processing and memory overhead as well as low network utilization. It creates bi-directional shared multi-cast trees connecting multi-cast sources and destinations. These multicast trees are maintained as long as group members exist within the connected portion of the network.