Multicast Scheme Research Articles

NDN multicast over wireless networks: A survey on fundamentals, challenges, and open issues

Wireless devices have shown remarkable growth in data demand in the last decade due to the proliferation of smart devices and the emergence of bandwidth-hungry applications. This increasing data traffic demand is overcrowding the radio frequency spectrum, leading wireless multicast schemes to become a popular research topic again, as they provide efficient data dissemination. NDN supports multicast communication by design. It is a networked system formed by named entities that adopt a communication model focusing on the content rather than its location. The architecture follows a receiver-driven communication model through which content consumers retrieve data through semantically meaningful names instead of specific destinations. Its properties are essential for multicast communication on ad hoc networks, as its features provide enhanced support for dynamic topologies, decentralized control, and the self-organization of participant nodes that communicate without needing a pre-existing network infrastructure. However, despite the wireless medium being broadcast by nature, NDN multicast is still challenging in wireless scenarios, especially in ad hoc environments, due to the node’s high mobility, link instability, constant handovers, and data transmission over a shared medium. Hence, this survey discusses the benefits of NDN for mobile scenarios through an in-depth analysis of NDN multicast features, focusing on fundamentals, challenges, and open issues when applied to wireless networking.

A dynamic multicast routing protocol for visible light communication networks

Due to the current challenges of wireless communications, optical wireless communications, like visible light communication (VLC), have become very popular in the last decade for local area networks. However, current VLC systems focus mainly on one-hop direct transmissions, ignoring that many networking applications require multicast communications. In this sense, we propose MCAST-VLC, a fully functional cross-layer dynamic multicast scheme over a dynamic routing protocol for VLC. MCAST-VLC considers the particular characteristics of the VLC as the need for group management, traffic isolation, a challenging multi-hop route discovery protocol, and a complex cross-layer VLC mechanism to maintain the proper system state. We evaluate our protocol following close real indoor VLC scenarios, previously discussed in the literature, where a light source in a room streams data to a few other VLC devices, and we extend our results numerically. Our results show that MCAST-VLC can handle considerably more network flows than a unicast VLC system under a negligible overhead.

A tree-recursive partitioned multicast mechanism for NoC-based deep neural network accelerator

In chip multiprocessor systems (CMPs), Network on Chip (NoC) has been widely used due to its advantages of favorable reusability, high reliability, and low power consumption. Recently, using NoC platforms to accelerate deep neural networks (DNNs) has become a new trend. This design can enable the intermediate computation results of DNNs to be transmitted within the chip, reducing the number of accesses to off-chip memory. However, a large amount of one-to-many traffic in the DNN accelerator will occupy the system bandwidth, which will significantly reduce the performance of the NoC platform dominated by one-to-one traffic. To address this issue, we propose a tree-based recursive partitioning multicast scheme (TRPM), which increases the path diversity and improves the system bandwidth. We also design a single-cycle per-hop router architecture, which effectively enhances the transmission efficiency of multicast packets. Detailed simulation results show that compared with the latest tree-based multicast algorithm for DNN accelerators, our scheme reduces the number of routed packets by 35%, the classification latency by 13.5% and the average packet latency by 14.5% on average.

Mode multicasting without parasitic wavelength conversion.

Optical multicasting, which involves delivering an input signal to multiple different channels simultaneously, is a key function to improve network performance. By exploiting individual spatial modes as independent channels, mode-division-multiplexing (MDM) can solve the capacity crunch of traditional standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) transmission system. In order to realize mode multicasting with high flexibility in future hybrid wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) and MDM networks, we propose a mode multicasting scheme without parasitic wavelength conversion, based on the inter-modal four-wave mixing (FWM) arising in the few-mode fiber (FMF). The operation mechanism including nonlinear phase shift for efficient mode multicasting is analytically identified. Then, based on the derived operation condition, we numerically investigate the impact of the dual-pump power and the FMF length on the performance of mode multicasting. By properly setting the pump wavelength and the dual-pump power, mode multicasting performance, in terms of mode multicasting efficiency, 3-dB bandwidth, and destination wavelength, can be tuned according to various application scenarios. After the performance optimization, mode multicasting of 25-Gbaud and 100-Gbaud 16-quadratic-amplitude modulation (16-QAM) signals is numerically demonstrated. The proposed reconfigurable mode multicasting is promising for future WDM-MDM networks.

A Novel Approach to Reduce Video Traffic Based on Understanding User Demand and D2D Communication in 5G Networks

Mobile network customers today prefer video news updates than text. However, the conventional cellular base stations may have challenges in simultaneously managing video transmission for all users, particularly in extensive network deployments. To address the aforementioned challenge discussed in this article, a proposed solution is presented. To lessen the burden of video traffic, we intend to improve the efficiency of D2D multicast network transmission in cellular D2D communications. A scalable video multicast strategy that accounts for user demand and makes use of device-to device (D2D) communication is offered as a means to this end. In the first step, we analyze the users' interests by looking at things like their video viewing habits and criteria like video popularity. The purpose of this research is to ascertain whether or not users are inclined to share movies, which would increase the number of viewers who receive multicast clusters. In the next stage, an algorithm for selecting cluster heads will be developed, taking into account criteria including channel quality, social metrics, and the requirements for video quality. In comparison to similar systems without multiplexing capacity, the proposed method exhibits superiority in three distinct aspects. The initial modification exhibits a surge ranging from 70% to 375 %. Furthermore, the overall growth rate of the entire system ranges from 32% to 64%. Furthermore, it is worth noting that there has been a significant rise of 90% in the number of network recipients, indicating a substantial boost in customer satisfaction.

The Effect of Symmetry on the De-Anonymizability of Social Networks

This paper studies time-sensitive multicast in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with link uncertainty, where information from source needs to be delivered to multiple receivers within an imposed delay constraint. Prior art on static WSNs minimizes the multicast delay via the construction of a multicast tree that approximates Steiner tree in length, which, however, may be invalidated by the time-varying network topology of WSNs with uncertain link states. Moreover, for multicast in WSNs with link uncertainty, the possible link failure necessitates a suitable measurement of the uncertain communication distance and calls for the performance guarantee in both delay and delivery ratio. In this work, by modeling a WSN as a random graph with each link associated with a transmission probability, we propose FlowerCast, an efficient multicast scheme, to jointly minimize the expected multicast delay and to maximize the expected delivery ratio of multicast under delay constraint. The core of FlowerCast is to quantify the uncertain communication distance by the expected transmission delay of a time-varying path, based on which a delay-optimal multicast tree is constructed in accordance with the directionality of delay. Candidate paths with high expected delivery ratio and low expected delay are then selected in a distributed manner to conditionally connect adjacent multicast members and thus transform the multicast tree into a multicast flower. Despite the NP-hardness of optimal candidate paths addition, the transformation with the highest expected delivery ratio of multicast under delay constraint can be guaranteed through a pseudo-polynomial time derandomization-based greedy approach. We further demonstrate the time and energy efficiency of FlowerCast through asymptotic analysis. To make full use of the possible overlapping links in a multicast flower, a hybrid routing strategy is presented to wisely switch between sequential routing and synchronous routing for extra enhancement of the multicast performance. Extensive experiments on various datasets verify the superiority of FlowerCast and hybrid routing over baselines and indicate their wide applicability to practical scenarios.

FlowerCast: Efficient Time-sensitive Multicast in Wireless Sensor Networks with Link Uncertainty

This article studies time-sensitive multicast in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) with link uncertainty, where information from the source needs to be delivered to multiple receivers within an imposed delay constraint. Prior art on static WSNs minimizes the multicast delay via the construction of a multicast tree that approximates the Steiner tree in length, which, however, may be invalidated by the time-varying network topology of WSNs with uncertain link states. Moreover, for multicast in WSNs with link uncertainty, the possible link failure necessitates a suitable measurement of the uncertain communication distance and calls for the performance guarantee in both delay and delivery ratio. In this work, by modeling a WSN as a random graph with each link associated with a transmission probability, we propose FlowerCast, an efficient multicast scheme, to jointly minimize the expected multicast delay and to maximize the expected delivery ratio of multicast under delay constraint. The core of FlowerCast is to quantify the uncertain communication distance by the expected transmission delay of a time-varying path, based on which a delay-optimal multicast tree is constructed in accordance with the directionality of delay. Candidate paths with a high expected delivery ratio and low expected delay are then selected in a distributed manner to conditionally connect adjacent multicast members and thus transform the multicast tree into a multicast flower. Despite the NP-hardness of optimal candidate paths’ addition, the transformation with the highest expected delivery ratio of multicast under delay constraint can be guaranteed through a pseudo-polynomial time derandomization-based greedy approach. We further demonstrate the time and energy efficiency of FlowerCast through asymptotic analysis. To make full use of the possible overlapping links in a multicast flower, a hybrid routing strategy is presented to wisely switch between sequential routing and synchronous routing for extra enhancement of the multicast performance. Extensive experiments on various datasets verify the superiority of FlowerCast and hybrid routing over baselines and indicate their wide applicability to practical scenarios.

A Scalable Video Multicast Scheme Based on User Demand Perception and D2D Communication.

With the widespread application of 5G technology, there has been a significant surge in wireless video service demand and video traffic due to the proliferation of smart terminal devices and multimedia applications. However, the complexity of terminal devices, heterogeneous transmission channels, and the rapid growth of video traffic present new challenges for wireless network-based video applications. Although scalable video coding technology effectively improves video transmission efficiency in complex networks, traditional cellular base stations may struggle to handle video transmissions for all users simultaneously, particularly in large-scale networks. To tackle this issue, we propose a scalable video multicast scheme based on user demand perception and Device-to-Device (D2D) communication, aiming to enhance the D2D multicast network transmission performance of scalable videos in cellular D2D hybrid networks. Firstly, we analyze user interests by considering their video viewing history and factors like video popularity to determine their willingness for video pushing, thereby increasing the number of users receiving multicast clusters. Secondly, we design a cluster head selection algorithm that considers users' channel quality, social parameters, and video quality requirements. Performance results demonstrate that the proposed scheme effectively attracts potential request users to join multicast clusters, increases the number of users in the clusters, and meets diverse user demands for video quality.

Maximizing the Capacity of Edge Networks with Multicasting

Edge networks employ local computing and caching resources to process data, thus alleviating the bandwidth pressure on backbone networks and improve users’ quality of experience. System capacity is one of the key metrics to evaluate the performance of edge networks. However, maximizing system capacity in edge scenarios faces challenges due to the dynamical user sessions and the changing content popularity. This study reports on the influence of multicast communication on the capacity of edge caching networks. When large amounts of content are requested simultaneously or over a short period, one-to-one unicast transmission will consume copious network resources due to repetitious transmission. To solve this problem, this study used the one-to-many multicast scheme to realize cooperative transmission between edge servers. First, multiple copies of the content are distributed to multiple small base stations (SBSs) based on the content’s popularity and the SBSs’ cache sizes. Second, a multicast tree is constructed by using, as the root node, the SBS that stores the content. Third, the content is transmitted along the path of the multicast tree to each end-user. Finally, a simulation platform is constructed to analyze the performance of the two transmission schemes. The results of simulating on edge caching networks show that multicast communication responds well to users’ requests even when the requested content requires sudden transmission, is highly popular or is requested often within short time. This system’s capacity has been significantly improved compared to the classical methods.

Coded multicasting for content delivery over predictable time-varying satellite communication networks

With the development of astronautic technology, communication satellites now have a tremendous gain in both quantity and quality, and have already shown their capability on multi-functional converged communication other than telecommunication. Under this circumstance, increasing the transmission efficiency of satellite communication network becomes a top priority. In this paper, we focus on content delivery service on satellite networks, where each ground station may have prefetched some file fragments. We cast this problem into a coded caching framework so as to exploit the coded multicast gain for minimizing the satellite communication load. We first propose an optimization-based coded multicast scheme by considering the special property that the satellite network topology is predictable and time-variant. Then, a greedy based fast algorithm is proposed, which can tremendously reduce the computation complexity with a small loss in optimality. Simulation experiments conducted on two Walker constellation satellite networks show that our proposed coded multicast method can efficiently reduce the communication load of satellite networks.

Robust Beamforming Design for Cache-Enabled C-RAN With Fronthaul Multicast

In this article, we study a robust beamforming design problem in the cached-enable cloud radio access network, where the imperfect channel state information of the access links are considered. Two transmission schemes, nonsimultaneous transmission (NST) scheme and simultaneous transmission (ST) scheme, are developed. To improve the system performance, the cooperative transmission technique is applied. In NST scheme, the base stations (BSs) obtain the uncached required files from the central processor (CP) and then transmit all required files to users. Based on this, we design an effective transmission model based on cache files and the qualities of the fronthaul link channels, and formulate a transmission delay minimization problem. Then, an alternative optimization algorithm is developed to solve it. In ST scheme, the BSs obtain the uncached files from the CP and transmit the cached files to users simultaneously. We divide two cases according to the access link transmission rate and cached files. For each case, we formulate an optimization problem by jointly designing the fronthaul multicast beamforming and access link transmission beamforming. Next, an iterative algorithm is developed via the L0 norm approximation, successive convex approximation and semidefinite relaxation techniques. Finally, simulation results show the proposed schemes can reduce the transmission delay better than the conventional multicast schemes.

Point Cloud Soft Multicast for Untethered XR Users

3D point cloud data formats are used to express three-dimensional (3D) information using numerous points in a 3D space. A key challenge is the delivery of high-quality 3D point cloud for the users under a diverse channel quality and available bandwidth to share the same 3D space across multiple untethered extended reality (XR) users. The existing digital-based schemes suffer from two issues owing to the diversity: cliff and leveling-off effects. This paper proposes a novel soft multicasting scheme of point cloud data for untethered XR users. The key ideas of the proposed scheme are three-fold: 1) integration of graph signal processing and analog modulation to adaptively improve the 3D reconstruction quality according to the channel quality for all individual XR users, 2) integration of Givens rotation and non-uniform adaptive quantization to reduce metadata overhead for the graph Fourier transform, and 3) prioritized transmission of the metadata to realize adaptive quality improvement based on the bandwidth available for each XR user. This paper reveals that the proposed scheme prevents cliff and leveling-off effects even when the XR users experience different channel qualities. Furthermore, the proposed transmission exhibits better 3D reconstruction quality compared with the state-of-the-art graph-based delivery scheme in band-limited environments.

Sliding-Window-Based RNC Scheme in UAV Multicasting: Performance Analysis and Network Optimization

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)-enabled multicasting network has attracted significant attention in recent years. However, there are still some disadvantages of existing multicasting schemes used in these systems, such as low transmission efficiency and high feedback overhead. Accordingly, we propose a sliding coding window (SCW)-based random network coding (SCWRNC) scheme for a UAV multicasting network where one UAV base station is dispatched to the multicast data stream to multiple user equipments (UEs). The proposed scheme includes an SCW scheduling original packets for encoding, a lower triangular coding structure enabling UEs to decode out information even without receiving a full set of coded packets, and a feedback-compete mechanism requiring only one UE to send feedback information. The packet scheduling process is described as a five-tuple Markov decision process. Then, we give a theoretical analysis of the proposed scheme, based on which the sliding steps of SCW and the UAV hovering location are jointly optimized to maximize the system throughput. The optimal sliding steps are obtained by applying the Greedy scheduling technique, while the UAV optimal position is obtained by minimizing the maximum outage probability of all UEs. Furthermore, we also propose a flexible feedback mechanism, which enables more than one UE to send feedback for systems with sufficient resources and a “F-SCWRNC” scheme for systems where no UE is allowed to send feedback. Numerical results show that both the proposed SCWRNC scheme and F-SCWRNC scheme could achieve significant throughput gain over the existing ones.

Multiparty multicast schemes for remote state preparation of complex coefficient quantum states via partially entangled channels

Multiparty multicast schemes for remote state preparation of complex coefficient quantum states via partially entangled channels

Quantum Cooperative Multicast in a Quantum Hybrid Topology Network

Quantum multicast is a significant transmission mode in a multiparty communication scenario. Multisource collaboration can further enhance the efficient multicast. However, it remains a challenge to realize quantum multicast with a cooperative way in a complex topology network. In this article, we propose a scheme of quantum cooperative multicast in a hybrid topology network. It provides information aggregation and simultaneous multipoint transmission services. First, collaborative information aggregation allows central network data to be integrated into the aggregation node. By exploiting the quantum multicast mode, the aggregation node can simultaneously deliver integrated quantum states to multiple targets. Second, our scheme is feasible for dynamic network expansion. It is capable of extending the network architecture iteratively, while the peer network requests can be handled in parallel. Finally, the new scheme shows great application potential in the distributed quantum network. It is a promising candidate for the implementation of quantum data disaster backup in future.

A Novel Approach to Support Scalable Multicast Routing in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Nowadays, group communications over Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) have received significant attention. Multicasting plays an important role in simultaneous delivery of information to group of receivers. Thus, it is necessary to design efficient and effective multicast routing protocol to support group communication applications. Several efforts have been put to improve multicast routing. However, they do not consider scalability issue. This paper introduces a a novel Scalable Geographic Multicast Routing Protocol (SGMRP). The main objective of this protocol is to design a lightweight scalable multicast routing scheme irrespective of the number of multicast members and network size. To achieve this, a virtual clustering strategy has been introduced. This strategy based on partitioning the network into sectorial zones. The proposed solution performs efficient packet forwarding with reduced communication overhead. The proposed scheme eliminates the duplicate packets between clusters and reduces the number of participating nodes

Multicast-based N -party remote-state preparation of arbitrary Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger–class states

As an important resource, the multiqubit entangled state is widely concerned in quantum computing and quantum communication. Based on the multiqubit partially entangled state, we propose a quantum multicast scheme. In the proposed scheme, arbitrary $N$-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state could be sent to $N$ receivers via a $2N$-qubit partially entangled state. Specially, the proposed scheme is accomplished with controlled-not gates, which ensure the scheme is more efficient and easier to be implemented. In addition, we construct the quantum circuit simulations and the partially entangled channel on IBMQ to prove the feasibility of the scheme. Finally, the performance of the proposed scheme is analyzed to show that the scheme owns the higher efficiency.

Coordinated Multicast/Unicast Transmission on 5G: A Novel Approach for Linear Broadcasting

Linear broadcasting services, with a scheduled programming, constitute a paramount telecommunication service for today’s society. Although the existing technology is mature, current linear broadcast systems have serious limitations when providing service to moving users or users placed in areas with complex orography and poor signal quality. To overcome these limitations, 3GPP 5G standard has included a work item to support 5G multicast/broadcast services for future Release 17. This paper investigates the integration of point-to-point (unicast) communication with cellular multicast/broadcast on 5G technology to extend the current support of linear broadcasting services. This integration relies on the use mobile edge computing (MEC) at the 5G base station (gNB) to host a dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH) server that is coordinated with the multicast transmission to complement the broadcast service. This approach join the reliability of point-to-point communications, with dedicated resources for each user, with the spectrum efficiency of multi-cast communications, where a set of users share common resources. The cooperation between those unicast and multicast schemes allows those users whose coverage is not good enough, to complete the linear broadcast flow through the point-to-point transmission via MEC. The benefits of such approach have been assessed with simulations in a realistic scenario that considers a vehicle moving across a sparsely populated region in southern Spain. Results reveals that throughput and bitrate playback (reproduction rate) are greatly improved when unicast/multicast integration is enabled since the number of stalling events is reduced significantly.

Joint Beamforming and Power-Splitting Design for Cooperative Nonorthogonal Multicast

We propose a cooperative nonorthogonal multicast scheme for multiple-input-single-output (MISO) systems, where the transmitter sends the superimposed signal to two multicast groups. After successfully detecting all signals, the cell-center users (CCUs) in one multicast group help relay signal to the cell-edge users (CEUs) in another group to enhance signal reception. Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer is adopted at CCUs to assist information relaying. In such a system, to minimize the transmission power of the system while satisfying the quality of service requirements of all the users, an optimization problem is formulated to jointly design the transmitter beamformers, distributed CCUs beamformer, as well as the power-splitting (PS) ratios. To solve the nonconvex problem, we first equivalently transform it into a difference of convex (DC) programming. Then, a low-complexity iterative algorithm based on the constrained concave convex procedure (CCCP) is proposed to solve the DC programming one. In addition, a robust joint beamforming and PS scheme is proposed by assuming imperfect channel state information (CSI). The infinite constraints caused by CSI uncertainties are converted into finite ones utilizing the S-procedure. To obtain a rank-one locally optimal solution, the penalty function method and CCCP algorithm are adopted. The simulation results reveal that the proposed cooperative scheme can greatly reduce the transmission power and outperform the baselines within a certain range. Moreover, the robustness and effectiveness of the robust design under imperfect CSI case have been validated.

Network coding assisted reliable multi-source multicasting over a multi-hop wireless mesh network

This paper introduces a Network Coding (NC) Assisted Reliable Multi-Source Multicasting (NCRMM) technique for multi-hop wireless mesh networks. The NCRMM scheme decreases the average number of packet transmissions in a network, which in turn reduces resource expenditure and traffic congestion problems. Multicast Least Cost Anypath Routing (MLCAR) algorithm is considered in NCRMM to select the neighbouring nodes participating in efficient packet transmission from multiple source nodes to the corresponding destination sets. At each intermediate node, a Coding Window (CW) is defined which stores packets received at the node from the same and/or different sessions. In the proposed NCRMM algorithm, packets are judiciously combined using intra-session and inter-session NC to ensure efficient distribution of coded packets among the neighbouring nodes. This is done while ensuring that packets transmitted at each source node are reliably received at all nodes of the corresponding destination set. The results are obtained for NCRMM and compared with that of the respective MLCAR and NC-MLCAR approach through extensive simulations. It is observed that the cost of multicasting packets in the NCRMM scheme is significantly less than that of the existing MLCAR and NC-MLCAR schemes for both independent and correlated link scenarios. Results comparing the complexity of the proposed NCRMM scheme with other multicasting schemes are also presented.