Scalable team multicast in wireless ad hoc networks exploiting coordinated motion

Abstract

In this paper, we study a new multicast paradigm for large scale mobile ad hoc networks, namely team multicast. In team multicast the multicast group does not consist of individuals, rather, of member teams. For example a team may be a special task force that is part of a search and rescue operation. The message must be broadcast to each member of each team in the multicast group. Team multicast is very common in ad hoc networks set up to accomplish some collective tasks, such as for emergency recovery or battlefield applications. A key problem in several of the above applications is scalability to large membership size as well as network size. Our approach exploits motion affinity (more precisely, team members’ coordinated motion) which is typically present when the set of nodes has a commonality of interests. Each team can be viewed as a logical subnet. Within the team a landmark node is dynamically elected. The addresses of and the paths to the chosen landmarks are propagated into the whole network so that a source of a multicast group can route to the landmark of a subscribed team. Our protocol, Multicast-enabled Landmark Ad Hoc Routing (denoted as M-LANMAR), uses tunneling from multicast sources to each landmark of the subscribed team and restricted flooding within the motion group. Simulation study shows that M-LANMAR provides efficient and reliable multicast compared with the application of a “flat” multicast scheme (e.g., ODMRP) that does not exploit team coordinated motion. This paper contains three contributions: a new model for team multicast, with the definition of team dynamics (join, merge, split); the exploitation of team mobility and of landmarks in order to achieve scalable multicast, and; the implementation and performance evaluation of M-LANMAR, a landmark based team multicast scheme.