Multicast Service-Oriented Virtual Network Embedding in Wireless Mesh Networks

Multicast is used in numerous real-time applications which have high demand on quality of service (QoS). When a number of multicast applications are deployed in a wireless mesh network (WMN), network virtualization technology can be used to guarantee the QoS for each application. Since wireless links are unreliable, packet loss is inevitable when the multicast service-oriented virtual networks (VNs) are embedded into a WMN. Although multicast allows the occurrence of packet loss, it is still important to ensure the packet loss rate is below a certain level for QoS guarantee. In this letter, we propose a novel approach, referred to as WELL, to settle the problem of embedding multicast VNs with reliability constraints into a WMN with lossy links. Through opportunistic rebroadcast, WELL minimizes the activation time of the VNs while satisfying their reliability constraints. Simulation results reveal that WELL dramatically outperforms both pure broadcast and unicast based solutions.