A Multicast on-demand mesh-based routing protocol in multihop mobile wireless networks

Mobile ad hoc networks are formed by an autonomous collection of mobile nodes constructing dynamic wireless networks. Unlike static networks, they have no spatial hierarchy and suffer from frequent link failures, which prevent mobile hosts from using traditional routing schemes. Applying multicast communication in such an environment provides efficient saving in bandwidth and reduces communication cost. This paper proposes a new on-demand multicast routing protocol, named source routing-based multicast protocol (SRMP). This protocol applies the source routing mechanism, proposed in DSR unicast protocol, in a modified manner. SRMP constructs a mesh to connect group members, providing robustness against mobility. It also provides stable paths based on links availability according to future prediction of links state, and higher battery life paths tending to power conserving. A detailed description of SRMP is given including route discovery/reply, forwarding group selection, data forwarding and maintenance procedures. A comparison with ODMRP and ADMR protocols shows the better performance of SRMP in terms of throughput, route lifetime and network overload.