Abstract

In recent years the use of portable and wireless equipment is becoming
more widespread, and as in many situations communication infrastructure
might not be available, wireless networks such as Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
(MANETs) are becoming increasingly important. A mobile ad hoc network is a
collection of nodes that exchanges data over wireless paths. The nodes in this
network are free to move at any time, therefore the network topology changes
in an unpredictable way. Since there is no fixed infrastructure support in mobile
ad hoc networks, each node functions as a host and a router. Due to mobility,
continuous change in topology, limited bandwidth, and reliance on batteries;
designing a reliable and scalable routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks is
a challenging task.
Multicast routing protocols have been developed for routing packets in
mobile ad hoc networks. Existing protocols suffer from overheads and
scalability. As the number of senders, groups, and mobility speed increases,
the routing overhead and the packet collision increases, and therefore the
packet delivery ratio decreases. Thus none of the existing proposed multicast
routing protocols perform well in every situation.
In this study a novel multicast routing protocol for ad hoc networks is
proposed. It is an efficient and scalable routing protocol, and named Network
Sender Multicast Routing Protocol (NSMRP). NSMRP is a reactive mesh
based multicast routing protocol. A central node called mesh sender (MS) is
selected periodically from among the group(s) sender(s) to create one mesh in
order to be used in forwarding control and data packets to all multicast
group(s) member(s). One invitation message will be periodically flooded to all
group(s) member(s) by MS to join the group(s).
The proposed routing protocol is evaluated by simulation and compared
with a well known routing protocol. The results are analyzed and conclusions
are drawn.