RoMR: A Robust Multicast Routing protocol for ad-hoc networks

Support for multicast services is crucial for ad-hoc networks to become a viable alternative to infrastructured wired and wireless networks. In this paper, we propose RoMR, a Robust Multicast Routing algorithm for ad-hoc networks. The basic tenet of the algorithm is to build multiple reliable multicast trees that adapt to topology changes in a dynamic fashion. The main characteristics of RoMR are its robustness and mobility awareness in efficiently supporting multicast communication. The robustness of our multicast strategy stems from two techniques in creating the multicast trees. First, RoMR constructs the multicast trees with links that are less prone to failure than other links. Second, multiple trees are constructed, possibly interconnected, so that if a link fails in one tree, reliable paths established from an alternate tree are immediately available. Links that have a high probability of existing in the next time interval are chosen as the links that the trees have in common.