A multicast protocol for mobile ad hoc networks using location information

Multicasting is a one-to-many process by which a node can send the same packet to a subset of nodes, called multicast group, which have already registered to the same multicast group address. The goal of this paper is to propose! a multicast algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks using location information, where a multicast group is defined with respect to a specific network space area, called multicast domain. A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a set of nodes that agreed upon forming a spontaneous, temporary network so that they can communicate over wireless links despite the lack of any centralized administration and any form of infrastructure. The proposed algorithm benefits from the location-oriented service offered by a global positioning system (GPS), which provides MANET nodes (or nodes for short) with their location information when needed. Moreover, the protocol makes use of the Voronoi diagram properties in order to multicast a packet in a selective manner towards its target multicast domain, where only a small subset of nodes is involved in the forwarding process. These nodes, called authorized forwarders, are identified from the localized Voronoi graph that a multicast source node or an authorized forwarder constructs based on the location information of its neighborhood as well as the target multicast domain. The analysis has shown that the protocol helps minimize the transmission overhead, which would be caused during the forwarding of a multicast packet, while guaranteeing convergence and correctness. Compared to other existing location-based multicast protocols, the proposed one yields more reduction of transmission overhead and performs correctly even with particular MANET topologies.