An Efficient Shared-tree-Based Multi-source Multicast Routing Protocol in Mobile Networks

A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a distributed wireless network. The characteristics such as free mobility, self configuration, and fast deployment make MANETs suitable for various tasks. Multicasting can efficiently support a variety of applications and services. Most of the existing multicast routing protocols in MANETs consider only one source in a multicast group and become inefficient when the protocol is extended to multi-source multicasting. In this paper, we propose a shared-tree based multisource multicast routing protocol (STMRP) to provide efficient multicasting in the multisource multicast environment. The proposed shared forwarding tree and multipath routing preserve multicast efficiency as well as robustness. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol maintains the delivery ratio without losing multicast efficiency in the multisource multicast environment.