Optimal Resource Allocation for Homogeneous Wireless Multicast

Multicast-based data communication is an efficient communication scheme especially in multihop ad hoc networks where the MAC layer is based on one-hop broadcast from one source to multiple receivers. In this paper, we address the problem of resource allocation for a set of homogeneous multicast sessions over multihop wireless networks. We propose an iterative algorithm that achieves the optimal rates for a set of multicast sessions such that the aggregate utility for all sessions is maximized. We demonstrate analytically and through simulations that the algorithm achieves optimal resource utilization while guaranteeing fairness amongst multicast sessions. We further analyze the algorithm in network environments with asynchronous distributed computations. We present two implementations for our algorithm based on different network settings and show that the algorithm not only converges to the optimal rates in all network settings but it also tracks network changing conditions including mobility and dynamic channel capacity.