A scalable explicit multicast protocol for MANETs

Group oriented multicast applications are becoming increasingly popular in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Due to dynamic topology of MANETs, stateless multicast protocols are finding increased acceptance since they do not require maintenance of state information at intermediate nodes. Recently, several multicast schemes have been proposed which scale better with the number of multicast sessions than traditional multicast strategies. These schemes are also known as explicit multicast (Xcast; explicit list of destinations in the packet header) or small group multicast (SGM). In this paper, we propose a new scheme for small group multicast in MANETs named extended explicit multicast (E2M), which is implemented on top of Xcast and introduces mechanisms to make it scalable with number of group members for a given multicast session. Unlike other schemes, E2M does not make any assumptions related to network topology or node location. It is based on the novel concept of dynamic selection of Xcast forwarders (XFs) between a source and its potential destinations. The XF selection is based on group membership and the processing overhead involved in supporting the Xcast protocol at a given node. If the number of members in a given session is small, E2M behaves just like the basic Xcast scheme with no intermediate XFs. As group membership increases, nodes may dynamically decide to become an XF. This scheme, which can work with few E2M aware nodes in the network, provides transparency of stateless multicast, reduces header processing overhead, minimizes Xcast control traffic, and makes Xcast scalable with the number of group members.