Efficient group communications in location aware mobile ad-hoc networks

The highly dynamic and uncertain character of mobile ad-hoc networks poses significant challenges for group management. Node mobility often changes the multicast tree, and therefore, frequent updates from group members are required to refresh the multicast tree at the source node. This paper presents Courier, a group communications algorithm that uses the location and velocity of roaming nodes to provide bandwidth efficient multicast between a source and its destinations (i.e., group members) in location aware mobile environments. Toward that end, Courier offers (1) a bandwidth efficient method for location updates from group members, (2) a mobility prediction model for predicting the movement of mobile group members, and (3) an overlay multicast data distribution tree (OMDDT) construction algorithm that is guided by the mobility prediction model. Comparisons of Courier to related multicast algorithms indicate an increase in data transmission success and a decrease in overall bandwidth consumption. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.