Resource management in energy-limited, bandwidth-limited, transceiver-limited wireless networks for session-based multicasting

In this paper we consider source-initiated multicast session traffic in an ad hoc wireless network, operating under hard constraints on the available transmission energy as well as on bandwidth and transceiver resources. We describe the similarities and differences between energy-limited and energy-efficient communications, and we illustrate the impact of these overlapping (and sometimes conflicting) considerations on network operation. In energy-limited applications, fundamental objectives include the maximization of a network’s useful lifetime and the maximization of traffic that is delivered during this lifetime. We demonstrate how the incorporation of residual energy into the cost metric used for tree construction can provide improved performance based on these criteria. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All