A dynamic multicast tree reconstruction algorithm for minimum-energy multicasting in wireless ad hoc networks

In wireless ad hoc networks a crucial problem is to minimize energy consumption, as in most cases the nodes are battery operated. In this paper, we consider wireless ad hoc networks that use omni-directional antennas and have limited energy resources. We focus on the problem of minimum-energy multicast, for which it is well known that the broadcast nature of the radio transmission can be exploited to optimize energy consumption. In order to handle larger networks, we present a dynamic multicast tree reconstruction heuristic algorithm called MIDP (multicast incremental-decremental power), which provides a near optimal solution in polynomial-time. The experiment results show that our algorithm compares well with other proposals.