Efficient secure multicast route using genetic algorithms for wireless sensor and actor networks

Multicast routing is very important for wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs), where the decisions or control information from actors will be delivered to sensors over each link of the WSANs only once. In the multicast route each copy should be securely send to the authenticated destinations. The relay nodes should compute and identify forwarding paths to meet packet´s security requirement. This problem can be described as degree-constrained minimum spanning tree problem, which is an NP-complete problem. This paper uses genetic algorithm to compute such multicast route. In detail, the Prüfer encoding method is adopted to encode the solutions of the problem. Two genetic operators are specifically designed. We proved the operators can avoid producing infeasible solutions and missing feasible solutions.