An Efficient Shared-tree-Based Multi-Source Multicast Routing Protocol in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

A mobile ad hoc network(MANET) is a distributed wireless network. The characteristics such as free mobility, self configuration, and fast deployment make MANETs suitable for various tasks. Multicasting can efficiently support a variety of applications and services. Most of the existing multicast routing protocols in MANETs consider only one source in a multicast group and become inefficient when the protocol is extended to multi-source multicasting. In this paper, we propose a shared-tree-based multi-source multicast routing protocol (STMRP) to provide efficient multicasting in the multi-source multicast environment. The proposed shared forwarding tree and multi-path routing preserve multicast efficiency as well as robustness. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol maintains the delivery ratio without losing multicast efficiency in the multi-source multicast environment.