Performance Study of a Multicast Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks based on N2 Connectivity

We propose a distributed wireless multicast protocol based on 2-hop neighbor information. A unique feature of our algorithm is that the formation of the multicast tree is done during the media access stage and requires little additional message exchanging. Each node only needs to keep track the receiving status for all nodes within its 2-hop neighborhood, leading to a very light protocol. The effectiveness of our approach also comes from a novel MAC layer solution which can quickly resolve the multicast CTS collisions. We conducted detailed simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed protocol. Simulation results indicate that our protocol offers considerable improvement in multicast turnaround time and has superior energy/packet performance.