Reliability of time critical multicast communication

Multicast communication is considered to be the best way to satisfy time-critical application requirements. The authors examine a series of possible retransmission techniques for broadcast of multicast communications in a LAN. Considering the communication´s characteristics, a general model is proposed, and comparative study of different techniques is performed. An implementator of the application layer services of a reliable LAN can choose the best strategy according to this study. As an example, a numerical calculation is performed to analyze the retransmission techniques used in a field bus factory instrumentation protocol