A load-balanced complete-exchange multicast protocol for wireless ad-hoc networks

Complete-exchange multicasting is quite useful for numerous applications. We explicate a load-balanced complete-exchange multicast protocol (LCM), based on passive clustering, for wireless ad-hoc networks. From a logical viewpoint, LCM constructs multiple cluster structures to balance the traffic loads among all group members. It further avoids overloading of nodes or traffic congestion on the route. In LCM, an innovative scheme is devised to deal with the scenario in which a node plays different roles for different cluster structures. Simulation results show that LCM not only preserves all the advantages of passive clustering, but also performs very efficiently in complete-exchange multicasting. Consequently, LCM is really a feasible solution for load-balanced complete-exchange multicasting, especially for dense networks.