Quality-of-service-aware multicast routing in heterogeneous networks with ad hoc extensions

A growing number of users communicate on the move with each other utilising wireless network technologies. The heterogeneity level of networks is increasing with various wired and wireless parts as well as access technologies. Mobile ad hoc communications can fill the connectivity gaps in such networks. However, the increasing amount of multimedia content shared over the wireless medium makes quality of service (QoS) and resource efficiency essential requirements for mobile ad hoc networks. The growing number of group-oriented applications also requires efficient utilisation of network resources. The mesh-evolving ad hoc QoS multicast (MAQM) routing protocol proposes a solution to these problems. It achieves multicast efficiency by tracking resource availability in each nodepsilas neighbourhood and monitoring the QoS status continuously. Nodes decide on joining multicast sessions based on the sustainability of QoS. MAQM also evolves the initial multicast tree into a mesh to improve robustness. This article describes the modules of MAQM and presents its performance evaluation with regard to session-and packet-level QoS criteria. The results show that MAQM significantly improves multicast session efficiency.