Cooperative multicast aided picocellular hybrid information dissemination in mobile social networks: Delay/energy evaluation and relay selection

A novel hybrid information dissemination scheme is proposed for picocellular systems. At the first stage of our scheme, some of the mobile users (MUs) successfully receive the information of common interest via BS-aided multicast. At the second stage, the information is cooperatively multicast (co-multicast) by the information owners (IOs) in a self-organized ad hoc network until all the MUs receive it. Since limited resources are provided for the second stage of the spontaneous co-multicast, some of the IOs are appointed for relaying the information to the hitherto unserved MUs. Several relay selection protocols are conceived for the sake of improving the performance of our hybrid information dissemination scheme. The simulation results demonstrate that our scheme may reduce the average dissemination delay and the average energy dissipation by 20% and 70%, respectively, when compared to the conventional BS aided single-hop multicast. Furthermore, we demonstrate that relying on the IOs associated with the best links plays a crucial role in facilitating spontaneous information dissemination.