Minimum hop multicasting in broadcast wireless networks with omni-directional antennas

We consider the problem of minimum-hop multicasting in wireless networks. We first present a mixed integer linear programming model of the problem, followed by a discussion of a (sub-optimal) sequential shortest path heuristic algorithm with "node unwrapping". This sequential algorithm is amenable to distributed implementation. The node unwrapping part of the algorithm is used to modify the weight matrix of the underlying graph after each iteration and exploits the inherently broadcast nature of wireless transmissions. Simulation results are presented which indicate that reasonably good solutions can be obtained using the proposed heuristic algorithm.