TrAM: Cross-Layer Efficient Application-Layer Multicast in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

Application-layer multicast protocols more and more appear as attractive multicasting approaches, as they combine increased customizability of protocol mechanisms with the latters´ ease of deployment. Both features especially become important in mobile ad-hoc networks, in which groups of users running applications with diverging requirements share limited network resources. The core of each application-layer multicast protocol is the so-called overlay network. Since the latter is used for data forwarding between group members, its topology as well as its topology maintenance mechanisms have a direct impact on the communication´s efficiency. Their design thus requires special attention and detailed evaluations, with respect to potentially involved cross-layer effects. In this contribution we propose a novel overlay topology, which, because of its lightweight design, features an increased performance. For evaluation, we rely on simulative cross-layer analysis, in which we compare our protocol to other application-layer multicast approaches as well as to a simple n-times unicast strategy.