Multicasting on translucent multicast capable WDM mesh networks

As multicast applications becoming widely popular, supporting multicast in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks is an important issue. Currently, there are two schemes to support multicast in WDM networks. One scheme is opaque multicasting which replicate bit stream in electronic domain. And the other is transparent multicasting which replicate bit stream all optically by a light splitter. However, both of two schemes have drawbacks or difficulties. This paper investigates an alternate translucent multicasting scheme, in which a fraction of branch nodes replicate bit stream at electronic domain and the other branch nodes replicate bit stream all optically. Replicating bit stream at electronic domain will introduce electronic processing overhead and extra delay. To satisfy the delay requirement of multicast session, the maximum number of electronic hops of a multicast tree must be less than an upper bound. In this paper, a hop-constrained multicast routing heuristic algorithm called shortest path based hop-constrained multicast routing (SPHMR) is proposed. A series of simulations are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of translucent multicasting scheme. Simulation results show that the translucent multicasting scheme achieve a good compromise between network performance and network cost as well as power losses caused by light splitting.     

Explicit Multicasting for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper we propose an explicit multicast routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Explicit multicasting differs from common approaches by listing destination addresses in data packet headers. Using the explicit destination information, the multicast routing protocol can avoid the overhead of employing its own route construction and maintenance mechanisms by taking advantage of unicast routing table. Our protocol – termed Differential Destination Multicast (DDM) – is an explicit multicast routing protocol specifically designed for MANET environment. Unlike other MANET multicasting protocols, instead of distributing membership control throughout the network, DDM concentrates this authority at the data sources (i.e. senders) thereby giving sources knowledge of group membership. In addition, differentially-encoded, variable-length destination headers are inserted in data packets which are used in combination with unicast routing tables to forward multicast packets towards multicast receivers. Instead of requiring that multicast forwarding state to be stored in all participating nodes, this approach also provides the option of stateless multicasting. Each node independently has the choice of caching forwarding state or having its upstream neighbor to insert this state into self-routed data packets, or some combination thereof. The protocol is best suited for use with small multicast groups operating in dynamic MANET environment.     

Minimum-energy multicast in mobile ad hoc networks using network coding

The minimum energy required to transmit one bit of information through a network characterizes the most economical way to communicate in a network. In this paper, we show that, under a layered model of wireless networks, the minimum energy-per-bit for multicasting in a mobile ad hoc network can be found by a linear program; the minimum energy-per-bit can be attained by performing network coding. Compared with conventional routing solutions, network coding not only allows a potentially lower energy-per-bit to be achieved, but also enables the optimal solution to be found in polynomial time, in sharp contrast with the NP-hardness of constructing the minimum-energy multicast tree as the optimal routing solution. We further show that the minimum energy multicast formulation is equivalent to a cost minimization with linear edge-based pricing, where the edge prices are the energy-per-bits of the corresponding physical broadcast links. This paper also investigates minimum energy multicasting with routing. Due to the linearity of the pricing scheme, the minimum energy-per-bit for routing is achievable by using a single distribution tree. A characterization of the admissible rate region for routing with a single tree is presented. The minimum energy-per-bit for multicasting with routing is found by an integer linear program. We show that the relaxation of this integer linear program, studied earlier in the Steiner tree literature, can now be interpreted as the optimization for minimum energy multicasting with network coding. In short, this paper presents a unifying study of minimum energy multicasting with network coding and routing.     

A hexagonal-tree TDMA-based QoS multicasting protocol for wireless mobile ad hoc networks

The mobile multimedia applications have recently generated much interest in wireless ad hoc networks with supporting the quality-of-service (QoS) communications. The QoS metric considered in this work is the reserved bandwidth, i.e., the time slot reservation. We approach this problem by assuming a common channel shared by all hosts under a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) channel model. In this paper, we propose a new TDMA-based QoS multicast routing protocol, namely hexagonal-tree QoS multicast protocol, for a wireless mobile ad hoc network. Existing QoS routing solutions have addressed this problem by assuming a stronger multi-antenna model or a less-strong CDMA-over-TDMA channel model. While more practical and less costly, using a TDMA model needs to face the challenge of radio interference problems. The simpler TDMA model offers the power-saving nature. In this paper, we propose a new multicast tree structure, namely a hexagonal-tree, to serve as the QoS multicasting tree, where the MAC sub-layer adopts the TDMA channel model. In this work, both the hidden-terminal and exposed-terminal problems are taken into consideration to possibly exploit the time-slot reuse capability. The hexagonal-based scheme offers a higher success rate for constructing the QoS multicast tree due to the use of the hexagonal-tree. A hexagonal-tree is a tree whose sub-path is a hexagonal-path. A hexagonal-path is a special two-path structure. This greatly improves the success rate by means of multi-path routing. Performance analysis results are discussed to demonstrate the achievement of efficient QoS multicasting.     

The use of multiuser detectors for multicasting in wireless ad hocCDMA networks

In this paper, we address the issue of performance of linear multiuser detectors for a multicasting application in an ad hoc wireless network. Using a code-division multiple-access (CDMA) framework, we demonstrate how capacity results for multiuser detectors can be adapted to do session admission control for the multicasting problem. We then develop a multicast routing algorithm for ad hoc wireless networks. Using the session admission control mechanism and the multicast routing algorithm, we evaluate the performance of three different linear multiuser detectors for the multicasting application     

Minimum-energy all-to-all multicasting in wireless ad hoc networks

A wireless ad hoc network consists of mobile nodes that are powered by batteries. The limited battery lifetime imposes a severe constraint on the network performance, energy conservation in such a network thus is of paramount importance, and energy efficient operations are critical to prolong the lifetime of the network. All-to-all multicasting is one fundamental operation in wireless ad hoc networks, in this paper we focus on the design of energy efficient routing algorithms for this operation. Specifically, we consider the following minimum-energy all-to-all multicasting problem. Given an all-to-all multicast session consisting of a set of terminal nodes in a wireless ad hoc network, where the transmission power of each node is either fixed or adjustable, assume that each terminal node has a message to share with each other, the problem is to build a shared multicast tree spanning all terminal nodes such that the total energy consumption of realizing the all-to-all multicast session by the tree is minimized. We first show that this problem is NP-Complete. We then devise approximation algorithms with guaranteed approximation ratios. We also provide a distributed implementation of the proposed algorithm. We finally conduct experiments by simulations to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms all the other known algorithms.     

Algorithms for Energy-Efficient Multicasting in Static Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

In this paper we address the problem of multicasting in ad hoc wireless networks from the viewpoint of energy efficiency. We discuss the impact of the wireless medium on the multicasting problem and the fundamental trade-offs that arise. We propose and evaluate several algorithms for defining multicast trees for session (or connection-oriented) traffic when transceiver resources are limited. The algorithms select the relay nodes and the corresponding transmission power levels, and achieve different degrees of scalability and performance. We demonstrate that the incorporation of energy considerations into multicast algorithms can, indeed, result in improved energy efficiency.     

PPMA, a probabilistic predictive multicast algorithm for ad hoc networks

Ad hoc networks are collections of mobile nodes communicating using wireless media without any fixed infrastructure. Existing multicast protocols fall short in a harsh ad hoc mobile environment, since node mobility causes conventional multicast trees to rapidly become outdated. The amount of bandwidth resource required for building up a multicast tree is less than that required for other delivery structures, since a tree avoids unnecessary duplication of data. However, a tree structure is more subject to disruption due to link/node failure and node mobility than more meshed structures. This paper explores these contrasting issues and proposes PPMA, a Probabilistic Predictive Multicast Algorithm for ad hoc networks, that leverages the tree delivery structure for multicasting, solving its drawbacks in terms of lack of robustness and reliability in highly mobile environments. PPMA overcomes the existing trade-off between the bandwidth efficiency to set up a multicast tree, and the tree robustness to node energy consumption and mobility, by decoupling tree efficiency from mobility robustness. By exploiting the non-deterministic nature of ad hoc networks, the proposed algorithm takes into account the estimated network state evolution in terms of node residual energy, link availability and node mobility forecast, in order to maximize the multicast tree lifetime, and consequently reduce the number of costly tree reconfigurations. The algorithm statistically tracks the relative movements among nodes to capture the dynamics in the ad hoc network. This way, PPMA estimates the node future relative positions in order to calculate a long-lasting multicast tree. To do so, it exploits the most stable links in the network, while minimizing the total network energy consumption. We propose PPMA in both its centralized and distributed version, providing performance evaluation through extensive simulation experiments.     

Wireless Ad Hoc Multicast Routing with Mobility Prediction

An ad hoc wireless network is an infrastructureless network composed of mobile hosts. The primary concerns in ad hoc networks are bandwidth limitations and unpredictable topology changes. Thus, efficient utilization of routing packets and immediate recovery of route breaks are critical in routing and multicasting protocols. A multicast scheme, On-Demand Multicast Routing Protocol (ODMRP), has been recently proposed for mobile ad hoc networks. ODMRP is a reactive (on-demand) protocol that delivers packets to destination(s) on a mesh topology using scoped flooding of data. We can apply a number of enhancements to improve the performance of ODMRP. In this paper, we propose a mobility prediction scheme to help select stable routes and to perform rerouting in anticipation of topology changes. We also introduce techniques to improve transmission reliability and eliminate route acquisition latency. The impact of our improvements is evaluated via simulation.     

Scalable Multicasting: The Core-Assisted Mesh Protocol

Most of the multicast routing protocols for ad hoc networks today are based on shared or source-based trees; however, keeping a routing tree connected for the purpose of data forwarding may lead to a substantial network overhead. A different approach to multicast routing consists of building a shared mesh for each multicast group. In multicast meshes, data packets can be accepted from any router, as opposed to trees where data packets are only accepted from routers with whom a tree branch has been established. The difference among multicast routing protocols based on meshes is in the method used to build these structures. Some mesh-based protocols require the flooding of sender or receiver announcements over the whole network. This paper presents the Core-Assisted Mesh Protocol, which uses meshes for data forwarding, and avoids flooding by generalizing the notion of core-based trees introduced for internet multicasting. Group members form the mesh of a group by sending join requests to a set of cores. Simulation experiments show that meshes can be used effectively as multicast routing structures without the need for flooding control packets.     

QoS multicast routing by using multiple paths/trees in wireless ad hoc networks

In this paper, we investigate the issues of QoS multicast routing in wireless ad hoc networks. Due to limited bandwidth of a wireless node, a QoS multicast call could often be blocked if there does not exist a single multicast tree that has the requested bandwidth, even though there is enough bandwidth in the system to support the call. In this paper, we propose a new multicast routing scheme by using multiple paths or multiple trees to meet the bandwidth requirement of a call. Three multicast routing strategies are studied, SPT (shortest path tree) based multiple-paths (SPTM), least cost tree based multiple-paths (LCTM) and multiple least cost trees (MLCT). The final routing tree(s) can meet the user’s QoS requirements such that the delay from the source to any destination node shall not exceed the required bound and the aggregate bandwidth of the paths or trees shall meet the bandwidth requirement of the call. Extensive simulations have been conducted to evaluate the performance of our three multicast routing strategies. The simulation results show that the new scheme improves the call success ratio and makes a better use of network resources.     

移动自组织网络中基于树结构的优化组播路由算法(英)

Mobile Ad hoc Networks(MANETs) play an important role in emergency communications where network needs to be constructed temporarily and quickly.Since the nodes move randomly,routing protocols must be highly effective and reliable to guarantee successful packet delivery.Based on the data delivery structure,most of the existing multicast routing protocols can be classified into two folders:tree-based and mesh-based.We observe that tree-based ones have high forwarding efficiency and low consumptions of bandwidth,and they may have poor robustness because only one link exists between two nodes.As a treebased multicast routing protocol,MAODV(Multicast Ad hoc On-demand Vector) shows an excellent performance in lightweight ad hoc networks.As the load of network increases,QoS(Quality of Service) is degraded obviously.In this paper,we analyze the impact of network load on MAODV protocol,and propose an optimized protocol MAODV-BB(Multicast Ad hoc On-demand Vector with Backup Branches),which improves robustness of the MAODV protocol by combining advantages of the tree structure and the mesh structure.It not only can update shorter tree branches but also construct a multicast tree with backup branches.Mathematical analysis and simulation results both demonstrate that the MAODV-BB protocol improves the network performance over conventional MAODV in heavy load ad hoc networks.     

On-Demand Multicast Routing Protocol in Multihop Wireless Mobile Networks

An ad hoc network is a dynamically reconfigurable wireless network with no fixed infrastructure or central administration. Each host is mobile and must act as a router. Routing and multicasting protocols in ad hoc networks are faced with the challenge of delivering data to destinations through multihop routes in the presence of node movements and topology changes. This paper presents the On-Demand Multicast Routing Protocol (ODMRP) for wireless mobile ad hoc networks. ODMRP is a mesh-based, rather than a conventional tree-based, multicast scheme and uses a forwarding group concept; only a subset of nodes forwards the multicast packets via scoped flooding. It applies on-demand procedures to dynamically build routes and maintain multicast group membership. ODMRP is well suited for ad hoc wireless networks with mobile hosts where bandwidth is limited, topology changes frequently, and power is constrained. We evaluate ODMRP performance with other multicast protocols proposed for ad hoc networks via extensive and detailed simulation.     

The core-assisted mesh protocol

The core-assisted mesh protocol (CAMP) is introduced for multicast routing in ad hoc networks. CAMP generalizes the notion of core-based trees introduced for internet multicasting into multicast meshes that have much richer connectivity than trees. A shared multicast mesh is defined for each multicast group; the main goal of using such meshes is to maintain the connectivity of multicast groups even while network routers move frequently, CAMP consists of the maintenance of multicast meshes and loop-free packet forwarding over such meshes. Within the multicast mesh of a group, packets from any source in the group are forwarded along the reverse shortest path to the source, just as in traditional multicast protocols based on source-based trees. CAMP guarantees that within a finite time, every receiver of a multicast group has a reverse shortest path to each source of the multicast group. Multicast packets for a group are forwarded along the shortest paths front sources to receivers defined within the group's mesh. CAMP uses cores only to limit the traffic needed for a router to join a multicast group; the failure of cores does not stop packet forwarding or the process of maintaining the multicast meshes     

Multicasting with Localized Control in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

This paper investigates how to support multicasting in wireless ad hoc networks without throttling the dominant unicast flows. Unicast flows are usually congestion-controlled with protocols like TCP. However, there are no such protocols for multicast flows in wireless ad hoc networks and multicast flows can therefore cause severe congestion and throttle TCP-like flows in these environments. Based on a cross-layer approach, this paper proposes a completely-localized scheme to prevent multicast flows from causing severe congestion and the associated deleterious effects on other flows in wireless ad hoc networks. The proposed scheme combines the layered multicast concept with the routing-based congestion avoidance idea to reduce the aggregated rate of multicast flows when they use excessive bandwidth on a wireless link. Our analysis and extensive simulations show that the fully-localized scheme proposed in this paper is effective in ensuring the fairness of bandwidth sharing between multicast and unicast flows in wireless ad hoc networks.     

Evaluation of multicast routing algorithms for real-timecommunication on high-speed networks

Multicast (MC) routing algorithms capable of satisfying the quality of service (QoS) requirements of real-time applications will be essential for future high-speed networks. We compare the performance of all of the important MC routing algorithms when applied to networks with asymmetric link loads. Each algorithm is judged based on the quality of the MC trees it generates and its efficiency in managing the network resources. Simulation results over random networks show that unconstrained algorithms are not capable of fulfilling the QoS requirements of real-time applications in wide-area networks. Simulations also reveal that one of the unconstrained algorithms, reverse path multicasting (RPM), is quite inefficient when applied to asymmetric networks. We study how combining routing with resource reservation and admission control improves the RPM's efficiency in managing the network resources. The performance of one semiconstrained heuristic, MSC, three constrained Steiner tree (CST) heuristics, Kompella, Pasquale, and Polyzos (1992), constrained adaptive ordering (CAO), and bounded shortest multicast algorithm (BSMA), and one constrained shortest path tree (CSPT) heuristic, the constrained Dijkstra heuristic (CDKS) are also studied. Simulations show that the semiconstrained and constrained heuristics are capable of successfully constructing MC trees which satisfy the QoS requirements of real-time traffic. However, the cost performance of the heuristics varies. The BSMA's MC trees are lower in cost than all other constrained heuristics. Finally, we compare the execution times of all algorithms, unconstrained, semiconstrained, and constrained     

Supporting multicasting in mobile ad‐hoc wireless networks: issues,challenges, and current protocols

The basic philosophy of personal communication services is to provide user‐to‐user, location independent communication services. The emerging group communication wireless applications, such as multipoint data dissemination and multiparty conferencing tools have made the design and development of efficient multicast techniques in mobile ad‐hoc networking environments a necessity and not just a desire. Multicast protocols in mobile ad‐hoc networks have been an area of active research for the past couple of years. This paper summarizes the activities and recent advances in this work‐in‐progress area by identifying the main issues and challenges that multicast protocols are facing in mobile ad‐hoc networking environments, and by surveying several existing multicasting protocols. This article presents a classification of the current multicast protocols, discusses the functionality of the individual existing protocols, and provides a qualitative comparison of their characteristics according to several distinct features and performance parameters. Furthermore, since many of the additional issues and constraints associated with the mobile ad‐hoc networks are due, to a large extent, to the attribute of user mobility, we also present an overview of research and development efforts in the area of group mobility modeling in mobile ad‐hoc networks. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

QoS multicast routing in cognitive radio ad hoc networks

In this paper, we discussed the issues of QoS multicast routing in cognitive radio ad hoc networks. The problem of our concern was: given a cognitive radio ad hoc network and a QoS multicast request, how to find a multicast tree so that the total bandwidth consumption of the multicast is minimized while the QoS requirements are met. We proposed two methods to solve it. One is a two‐phase method. In this method, we first employed a minimal spanning tree‐based algorithm to construct a multicast tree and then proposed a slot assignment algorithm to assign timeslots to the tree links such that the bandwidth consumption of the tree is minimized. The other is an integrated method that considers the multicast routing together with the slot assignment. Extensive simulations were conducted to show the performance of our proposed methods. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Application versus network layer multicasting in ad hoc networks: the ALMA routing protocol

Application layer multicasting has emerged as an appealing alternative to network layer multicasting in wireline networks. Here, we examine the suitability of application layer multicast in ad hoc networks. To this effect, we propose a flexible receiver-driven overlay multicast protocol which we call Application Layer Multicast Algorithm (ALMA). ALMA constructs an overlay multicast tree in a dynamic, decentralized and incremental way. First, ALMA is receiver-driven: the member nodes find their connections according to their needs. Second, it is flexible, and thus, it can satisfy the performance goals and the needs of a wide range of applications. Third, it is highly adaptive: it reconfigures the tree in response to mobility or congestion. In addition, our protocol has the advantages of an application layer protocol: (a) simplicity of deployment, (b) independence from lower layer protocols, and (c) capability of exploiting features such as reliability and security that may be provided by the lower layers. Through extensive simulations, we show that ALMA performs favorably against the currently best application layer and network layer protocols. In more detail, we find that ALMA performs significantly better than ODMRP, a network layer, for small group sizes. We conclude that the application layer approach and ALMA seem very promising for ad hoc multicasting.     

一种新型的Ad hoc QoS多播路由协议

无线自组织（Ad hoc）网络的应用环境要求其必须提供一定的服务质量（QoS）保证，然而，无线信道固有的特点及节点移动造成网络拓扑的频繁变化，使得在无线Ad hoc网络中支持QoS较困难。可以采用Ad hoc QoS多播（AQM）协议通过事先预约邻居节点以跟踪资源的有效性等措施来解决这一问题。通过考虑传输时延、丢失率、带宽要求、时延抖动、吞吐量等QoS指标，寻找满足特定QoS要求的路由，AQM协议可以明显地改善多播通信的性能。网络仿真结果表明AQM协议基本适合Adhoc网络。