Taxonomy of Network Layer Multicast Routing Protocols in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

A MANET consists of self organizing mobile nodes which exhibit dynamic behavior during their multicast operations. Thus, it is imperative to obtain the best way to provide multicast services in this kind of environment. For this purpose investigation and quantification of existing multicast routing protocols is the foremost step. In this article detailed discussion is done regarding basic behaviors of the multicast protocols and the types of services provided by them. Multicast protocols have different layers of operation namely, network layer, application layer and MAC layer. This work presents the coherent survey of existing network layer multicast routing protocols and discusses their routing mechanisms and the application/services. The classification of protocols on the basis of their types of routing mechanism and type of application/services, provide the comprehensive information about the protocols. Thus this paper aims to present a clear view to the MANET researchers and application developers so that they could select the multicast protocol accordingly for their work. Keywords—MANET, Multicast, Taxonomy