Stable multicast trees based on Ant Colony optimization for vehicular Ad Hoc networks

VANETs are networks that rely on their own vehicles to provide accident prevention systems and entertainment for passengers of vehicles. Such networks have clear distinguishing features such as restricted mobility and high velocity of nodes. In this paper, the reliability of MAODV is analyzed, a well known protocol that builds trees on demand to connect multicast group members. Knowing that to maintain a tree structure in vehicular environments is a challenge due to frequent link breaks, we developed the MAV-AODV (Multicast with Ant Colony Optimization for Vanets based on MAODV) protocol that makes use of vehicular mobility information to build stable trees. The MAV-AODV uses mechanisms based on Ant Colonies to optimize the multicast trees. The protocol messages act as bio-inspired agents (ants) depositing pheromone to evaluate the attractiveness of each route. We include simulation results to analyze the MAV-AODV protocol efficiency.