A performance comparison of multicast routing protocols in ad hoc networks

Multicast routing in mobile ad hoc NETworks (MANETs) is a recent research topic. In this paper, we present a performance study of three multicast protocols: ODMRP, ADMR, and SRMP. Source routing-based multicast protocol (SRMP) is a new on-demand multicast routing protocol that applies a source routing mechanism and constructs a mesh to connect group members. The strength of SRMP lies on its nodes selection criteria during mesh construction. Instead of using the shortest path as most of the other protocols, SRMP provides paths in terms of connectivity strength, higher battery life, and links´ availability. A performance comparison with ODMRP and ADMR shows that SRMP provides better route lifetime and battery lifetime.