Multicast Routing Protocols in Delay Tolerant Networks
Wen Hua Yin, Xiang Yu Bai, Xue Bin Ma · Applied Mechanics and Materials · 2014
Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) are characterized by intermittent connectivity, frequent partitions and extremely high latency. As a result, multicast routing protocols are difficult to implement in DTNs. Multicast can not only save network bandwidth, but also can reduce communication cost and improve the efficiency of data transfer. In recent years, various multicast routing protocols are proposed for DTNs. In order to provide a comprehensive understanding of these multicast routing protocols designed for DTNs, a survey of the multicast routing protocols was discussed in this paper. We analyzed two types of multicast routing protocols: the knowledge-based multicast routing protocol and the probability-based multicast protocol. We conclude the future research directions by discussing the advantages and disadvantages of various multicast routing protocols for DTNs, and provide some reference value for the further studies of multicast routing protocols of DTNs. Furthermore, in order to resolve the existing problems of DTNs (such as energy optimization); we will propose a social-aware energy constrained multicast routing algorithm in the future.