Simplified Multicast Forwarding in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Macker, Dean, Chao

network routing multicast smf olsr

@inproceedings{macker:milcom-2005,
  title={Simplified Multicast Forwarding in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks},
  author={Macker, J.P. and Dean, J. and Chao, W.},
  booktitle={Military Communications Conference ({MILCOM})},
  volume={2},
  pages={744--750},
  isbn={078038847X},
  year={2005},
  organization={{IEEE}}
}

Another approach is taken in Simplified Multicast Forwarding (SMF)~\cite{macker:milcom-2005}, which simply broadcasts all multicast messages in an optimized fashion. The intuition is that in many MANET applications and networks, a large percentage of traffic will be multicast, most nodes will be members of many groups, and the network and processing costs incurred in managing optimized routes for those groups in the face of steady churn, disconnects, and other MANET dynamics would not be worthwhile. As opposed to a classical flood, SMF adopts the propagation scheme used to broadcast OLSR~~\cite{jacquet:inmic-2001,clausen:ietf-2003} link state advertisements. In this, nodes apply local information and greedy decision making to elect themselves or their neighbors, depending on the variant used, as multi-point relays~\cite{qayyum:hicss-2002,ingelrest:msn-2006}. These relays alone rebroadcast received multicast packets, approximating the connected dominating set of optimal forwarders and eliminating redundant transmissions. SMF is intended as a building block for future protocols and is a developing IETF standard~\cite{chakeres:sigmobile-2006}.