Multicast Routing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Using Source Grouped Flooding

In this paper, we address the multicast routing problem for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). We present the Source Grouped Flooding approach to achieve multicast in MANETs. In this protocol, each source creates a flooding group consisting of nodes connecting the source to the multicast members. The nodes in the flooding group are recruited based on hop count distance constraints obtained during a request-reply phase. The flooding group though robust may result in redundant data transmissions. We also propose a probabilistic data forwarding mechanism to achieve efficient data dissemination. The protocol aims to achieve the robustness of flooding and data distribution efficiency of tree based protocols. Simulation results verify performance.