Hierarchical multicast techniques and scalability in mobile Ad Hoc networks

Many potential applications of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) involve group communications among the nodes. Multicasting is an useful operation that facilitates group communications. Efficient and scalable multicast routing in MANETs is a difficult issue. In addition to the conventional multicast routing algorithms, recent protocols have adopted the following new approaches: overlays, backbone-based, and stateless. In this paper, we study these approaches from the protocol state management point of view, and compare their scalability behaviors. To enhance performance and enable scalability, we have proposed a framework for hierarchical multicasting in MANET environments. Two classes of hierarchical multicasting approaches, termed as domain-based and overlaydriven, are proposed. We have considered a variety of approaches that are suitable for different scenarios such as multicast group sizes and number of groups. Results obtained through simulations demonstrate enhanced performance and scalability of the proposed techniques. 2005 Published by Elsevier B.V.