An ant system based multicasting in mobile ad hoc network

This paper proposes a novel multicasting algorithm, called ANMAS (ad hoc network multicasting with ant system), for mobile ad hoc network (MANET). The algorithm utilizes the indirect communication method of the ants via "pheromone" to effectively obtain dynamic topology change information, generating safer multicasting paths, and adapts the well-known CBT (core based tree) multicasting algorithm into the ANMAS framework with proper modifications to make "tolerable" multicasting group in the MANET environment. We show the efficiency and the effectiveness of ANMAS via simulation studies comparing with on-demand multicast routing protocol (ODMRP).