An Energy-Efficient Multicast Routing Protocol and Traffic Splitting in MANETs

A Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a decentralized, self-organizing network of mobile devices that communicate directly without depending on fixed infrastructure or centralized management. MANETs are defined by their dynamic topology and resource limitations, which result in uncertainty challenges. These uncertainties complicate the selection of the most efficient communication path. To tackle this issue, this paper introduces an effective multicast routing protocol for MANETs, taking into account energy, delay, and traffic constraints. The proposed approach combines all network metrics into a unified metric. Potential routes that meet the constraints are analyzed, and the one with the maximum cost is chosen as the optimal path. If no single route fulfills the constraints, traffic is distributed across multiple disjoint paths using the Traffic Splitting algorithm. Experimental findings reveal that the proposed protocol surpasses ODMRP and MAODV in terms of residual energy, packet delivery ratio, and packet delivery delay.