A new QoS multicast routing protocol

We mainly present a novel QoS multicast routing protocol. The protocol can operate on top of the unicast routing protocol. It only requires the local state information of the link (or the node), but does not requires any global network state to be maintained. The protocol can significantly reduce the overhead for constructing a multicast tree with QoS constraints. In the protocol, a multicast group member can join or leave the multicast session dynamically. The protocol can search multiple feasible tree branches, and select the optimal or near-optimal branch for connecting the new receiver to the multicast tree if it exists. The proof of correctness and complexity analysis of the protocol are given, and the performance measures of the protocol are evaluated using simulation. The study shows that the proposed protocol provides an available approach to multicast routing with QoS constraints.