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Multicast Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks

First M.Simek1, Second D.Komosny1, Third R.Burget 1 and Fourth J.S.Silva2, Member, IEEE
1

Department of Telecommunications, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic 2 Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra, Portugal

A paper deals with the state of the nowadays research of the multicast routing protocols for wireless sensor networks. We describe how to establish efficient multicast tree for wireless sensor network environment and introduce the two base groups of the multicast routing protocols. For these groups, blind flooding and geographic protocols, we introduce the main protocols representatives.

Index Terms network, wireless, sensor, multicast, routing

I. INTRODUCTION In present, a set of protocols were proposed for the multicast routing in the wireless Ad-hoc networks. But, most of them are not suitable for the implementation in the sensor networks environment. Above all, due to the modest resources of the sensor nodes such as memory and bandwidth limitations, the low computational power, limited battery etc. For instance, the most Ad-hoc routing protocols assume the relatively high links bandwidth ~ 2Mbps, but the sensor motes with 802.15-4 radio base operate at a nominal transmission rate of 250kbps. The main characteristics for multicast routing protocols evaluation are: i) Packet Delivery Ratio: The ratio of the number packets actually delivered to the destinations versus the number of data packet supposed to be received. ii) Number of packets transmitted per packets delivered: Count of every individual transmission of packets by each node to count of packet delivered. iii) Routing Overhead (Number of control packets transmitted per packets delivered): It express the effectiveness of controls packets for data delivering. iv) Number of packets and control packets per packets delivered: The total packet overhead. II. MULTICAST TREE CONSTRUCTION A. Construction The construction of multicast tree in the wireless ad-hoc environment is quite different from the multicast tree construction in the fixed IP networks. In such fixed networks, there are minimal restrictions in terms of data processing overhead and minimizing the cost of the established multicast tree. These protocols build the multicast tree routed from the source with the minimum number of hops, so-called source (shortest) path tree SPT. The main goal in the research of wireless ad-hoc multicast protocols is to find the efficient solution with the regarding to minimizing the cost of multicast tree with the consideration of the mobile scenario. In the adhoc network, the mobility of end nodes is the common and expected behavior whilst in the nowadays wireless sensor

networks, the mobility could be presented by the fast changing topology as the sensor nodes become sleep or awake. The cost of the multicast tree needs to be considered in such wireless networks mainly because of the bandwidth limitations and power-energy restrictions. The issue of the computing the multicast tree with the minimal cost is known as the Steinertree problem and it is also proved that this problem is NPcomplete [1]. Crucial condition is to determinate the particular design metrics for each type of networks. Apparently, the shortest past is the explicit criterion for the multicast tree creation in fixed IP networks. In the wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks the metric definition is dependent on the resource conditions and the behavior (static / mobile) of such network. We have to take into consideration two possible metrics: i) number of hops relaying the multicast packet, ii) number of transmission induced by the multicast communication. The challenge arises with the attempt to find the network conditions for which the i) or ii) is suitable metric cost. Indeed, the network scenario for which the both metrics are crucial can exist. Fig. 1 shows the tree construction scenarios with the terms of the different metric costs. Multicast tree in Fig. 1 a) is constructed in terms of the finding the shortest path to all receivers. In this case, SPT uses 8 nodes (included source) and induces 5 transmissions. Steiner Tree algorithm establishes the multicast tree with the minimum hop counts. In same scenario, it uses two less nodes against SPT and induces also less number of transmissions (see Fig. 1b)), but it is dependent upon the network topology. Further, the multicast process is different in fixed and wireless networks, since the designated router in fixed network needs to make as many copies as the number of receivers exist in his downstream leaf. In wireless ad-hoc networks, the packet relaying is based on the single message broadcasting to all neighbors. Thus, it is necessary in such networks to reformulate the design metric for the multicast tree construction. Rather than be considering in the minimum hop count upon delivering multicast data from source to multicast group, the more crucial metric becomes the number of transmission that is incurred by the multicast communication. The multicast tree construction in terms of the transmission number minimization is shown in Fig. 1 c). The number of nodes used is higher than with Steiner Tree, but the overall low number of transmissions (also message overhead)

Fig. 2 Mobility solution of VLM2

Ct(t)=1+|Ft|

(3)

Fig. 1 Comparison of a) SPT, b) Steiner Tree, c) Min.Tx Tree multicast tree construction.

As was mentioned above, in wireless ad-hoc scenario, each relay node rebroadcast just only one packet, thus number of transmission is equal to number of relay nodes |Ft| whereas the source contributes also with the one initiated packet. Hence, for the minimizing the message overhead, we have to also find the minimal number of relaying nodes |Ft|. In the next section, the two optimization algorithms proposed in [2] are briefly described. III. BLIND FLOODING PROTOCOLS The main shortcomings of the broadcast flooding described in [2] also called as broadcast storm problem used for multicast tree discovery process are: i) induces the great data overhead, ii) the intermediate nodes need to maintain the heavy multicast table, iii) the energy wasting, iv) the maintaining of the fresh multicast tree in the mobile scenario incurs the often message A. Very Lightweight Mobile Multicast VLM2 VLM2 is link layer protocol providing the unicast, broadcast, multicast routing for the forward sink-to-nodes direction and unicast, broadcast for backward nodes-to-sink direction. Downstream unicast routing is performed by the multicast group establishment with only one concrete member. This protocol also offers the feasible solution for the WSNs with the hierarchical (least one powerful basestation) and the mobile scenario; whereas the symmetric lines are expected to be guaranteed (S1 sensor is able to communicate with S2 and contrariwise). Due to 8-bit nodes and groups identifiers used, the number of nodes and multicast groups is restricted to 255, and 248 respectively. However, this numbers are for WSNs environment more than sufficient. The main idea of mobility solution consists in the DtB (Distance to Base) timer maintained by all nodes. The timer indicates the last time when the DtB value was updated. If the timer expires, the nodes increment DtB value and generate the DtB_Update message to discover possible changes in the own position (for more detailed information see Fig.2. In the simulation described in the efficiency of the upstream and the

makes this type of the construction suitable for the deployment to the bandwidth-constrained networks such the wireless sensor networks are. On the other hand, the complexity of computing minimal tree with the minimizing of path cost still leads the research community to deal with multicast route discovery process using the broadcast flooding solution also known as Broadcast-Storm Problem. B. Definition of Multicast Tree Problem In the mathematical expression, the wireless ad-hoc network is mostly modeled by the undirected graph G(V,E) where V is the set of vertices and E is the set of edges. Lets have r as a transmission range of each node v V. The edge between the v1 and v2 is established if dist (v1, v2) < r. For the exact problem definitions, some expressions need to be formulated. The problem is to find the set of nodes F V relaying the multicast data from source to the destination (end nodes joined to the particular multicast group). From the formulation (1) describing the problem of finding the set of relaying nodes in unicast communication, we are able to define the formulation for multicast communication as well (2): V s.t. s V s.t. s F D is connected (1) (2)

F R is connected

, where the source s V, the destination D V and the set of receivers R V [1]. As the literature [2] describes, the number of transmissions referred as Ct(t) required for delivering single message from the source s to the set of receivers R via the set of relaying nodes F creating multicast tree t T can be evaluated as:

3 multicast groups emerged in the sensor network. One of the ADMR weaknesses (as the origin protocol for ad-hoc network) is the routing metric using the minimum hop count principle for the route discovery process. However, the path selection with the minimal number of hops may not be the best solution, since may exist the else longer links but with the much better parameters of transmission quality. Nevertheless, as describes [4], the several alternate selection metrics overcoming this issue were proposed yet. It is necessary also point out, that ADMR was originally proposed for the 802.11 wireless ad-hoc network with the 1Mbps of average bitrate. And thus, the regular sender flood process for maintaining of the fresh multicast delivery tree appears as the efficient and suitable solution in this 802.11 wireless environment. However, in the sensor 802.15.4 wireless interfaces with the five times less bitrate about 200kbps, this sender flooding becomes the overhead originator No.1. At last, we can summarize the main aspects restraining the ADMR deployment into the sensor networks. These are: the source regular flooding, the insufficient memory space for routing tables for the great-scale network and also the volume of the ADMR upon conversing to nesC code. IV. GEOGRAPHIC MULTICAST ROUTING PROTOCOLS In particular, the main advantage that geographic routing brings is the data routing without any knowledge of the network topology. That is, the nodes need not to maintain the heavy multicast routing tables and refresh it in periodic interval such as in the flooding-based solutions mentioned above in chapter 3. The geographic routing protocols take advantage of the position information of all nodes in the WSN. The intermediate nodes belonging to the multicast tree forwarding the multicast data in accordance with the list of nodes included in the each packet header that is to be forwarded. From the mentioned, the principal limitation of the geographic-based routing ensues. It is the increasing size of the packet header as the network scale grows, mainly as the number of nodes belonging to the multicast tree is increasing. In the next chapters, the known geographic multicast routing protocols are briefly described. Some of them deal with the energy-efficiency, others with the cost of the tree in terms of number of the forwarding nodes. A. Grid Multicast Protocol GMP The key advantage of the Grid Multicast as the energyefficient multicast protocols consists in the data routing from the sink node to the multicast destination via the energyshortest geographic distance. It relies at the theory that the longer hop between the pair of nodes consumes more energy than the smaller one. Therefore, it uses the rectilinear hop by hop communication in the sensor network formed in the grid shape. The grid shape of the sensor network is crucial condition for this algorithm, but as literature [7] describes, the precise grip deployment is not necessary. In the random deployment scenario, the virtual grid is constructed with the grid unit size

Fig. 3 ADMR route discovery process

downstream transmissions were evaluated. It is shown that VLM2 contends with the high mobility environment that induces the heavy packet loss with the increasing speed of nodes. This packet loss is incurring because of the increasing frequency of the Subscription message generation by the multicast members nodes as topology quickly changes. Likewise, the greater control message (DtB_update) overhead appears as the nodes become more mobile, since the increasing number of links fault need to be reestablished. As reference [3] describes some disadvantages, the mentioned system has no capability to automatically choose the set of nodes and subscribe them to the specific multicast group. The present solution assumes that the nodes know own multicast address that is preprogrammed in the operation system. B. Adaptive Demand-driven Multicast Routing ADMR ADMR protocol [4], [5] uses also the common broadcast flooding process for the multicast route discovery process. Initially, sender broadcast the Route_Discovery message to determinate the shortest path to the members of the multicast group. The intermediate nodes compare the hops number of the discovery message with the own maintained number of hops to source. If the message hops count is less than nodes own hops, the node updates the routing information. In this downstream direction, intermediate nodes only merely rebroadcast the discovery message to neighbors. While the receivers response with the Receiver-Join message as describes Fig. 3, the intermediate nodes receiving this message identify itself as a forwarder for the multicast pair (S,G). Each node pertaining to delivery multicast tree maintains the tree routing tables: Node, Membership and Sender Table that are individually indexed by the (S,G) pair. The content of the particular tables is shown in Fig.4..
Index (S,G) Node Table previous hop path cost sequence number Membership Table forwarder/sender Sender Table sender for G1 sender for G5 .

Fig. 4 The routing tables of all nodes belonging to the forwarder multicast tree

To afford the sufficient memory space mainly for the Node tables becomes the critical issue with the increasing number of

4 of the sensor radio range divided by 5. Thus, in the each grid unit, there is just one awake sensor, while the rest of sensors in given unit are in the sleeping mode. Due to the grid unit size, each node is able to communicate with the adjacent nodes from the other units in the rectilinear way and thus to save an energy. The Grid Multicast introduces the Steiner Point node (see node classified as SP in Fig.5) as the contributed nodes for the reducing of the distance from sink to the nodes belonging to the multicast group. transmission induced by this session. The GMR uses the new evaluative parameter (lets call it nv = neighbor value) for the selection of the best candidate sets of nodes for the data forwarding to the multicast destination. Statement for the nv parameter is following: (4)

Fig.5 Multicast tree construction, a) traditional model of SPT, b) Grid Multicast model using rectilinear communication

The nn stands for number of neighbor of given set, Dw stands for the distance to the multicast destination from the current node without neighbor selection (direct communication) and finally the Dn is the new distance from selected neighbor node to the multicast destination. The algorithm subsequently selects the set of forwarding neighbor nodes with the minimal nv whereby ensures that the minimal number of nodes will used for the multicast transmission. For the clarification, take into consideration the scenario in Fig. 6.

The only aim of Steiner Point as a tree member is the packet forwarding from the sink node. The advantage of the Grid Multicast is data routing by means of Location-Guided Grid Routing that has no use for the maintaining of the multicast routing tables in the intermediate nodes. The position of the intermediate nodes belonging to the created multicast tree is placed in to the multicast packet header, thus upon the receiving, the intermediate nodes have position information of the downstream multicast nodes. But since the nodes have the narrow memory space, with the increasing number of the intermediate nodes whose addresses are included in the packet header, this solution has the restricted capabilities. Hence, the authors of [7] try to reduce the size of packet header by using of the grid coordinate information, instead of IP address or geographic position information as the identifier of each node belonging to the multicast tree. In the comparison with the similar geographic-based protocols such as the LGT [8], the Grid Multicast achieves the better results in terms of the energy-efficiency even if the nodes are not deployed in the accurate grid. In terms of the number of nodes involved in the multicast tree transmission, this multicast protocol induces the bigger bandwidth consumption. It is obvious, since it aims to use more nodes (as the energyefficient solution) consuming the larger bandwidth resources. B. Geographic Multicast Routing GMR GMR protocol is geographic localized protocol using only position information for the multicast routing in the sensor networks, which avoids the undesirable broadcast flooding. It uses the new heuristic neighbor selection algorithm [6] that reduces the cost of the constructed multicast tree in terms of the number of nodes selected for the multicast data forwarding, it means in terms of the number of nodes creating the multicast tree. The key of GMR is mostly based on the idea described in the chapter 2, the idea of the most important metric in the ad-hoc network is not being the number of nodes involved in the multicast session but the number of

Fig. 6 GMR Scenario of the neighbor selections

The node N is selecting the adjacent nodes as the forwarders for the data being transmitted. In the Fig. 6a) the node N selects the 3 neighbor nodes F1,F2,F3 for which computes the nv parameter, separately for each of sets being leafs of concrete F node. For instance, the nv parameter for the F1 node is computed as the reciprocal value of the D1 (origin distance) and D2 (new distance) distinction. We can call this distinction as the d12. 1 1 (5)

1 2

1|

2| 1 2|

3|

| 1 1|

| 1 3|

And thus, the overall nv parameter for the scenario in Fig. 6a) is: 3 In the statement (6), the x stands for the number of selected forwarding nodes. The key of GMR consists in the selection of the set of forwarding nodes with the smallest nv parameter, it means that the set of forwarding nodes from Fig. 6b) will selected as the forwarders if: (6)

5 2 3 (7)
[1]

REFERENCES
Lim H., Kim C., Multicast Tree Construction and Flooding in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, Proc. MSWiM00, Boston, MA. August, 2000, pp. 6168. [2] Ruiz, P.M., Gomez-Skarmeta A.F., Approximating Optimal Multicast Trees in Wireless Multihop Networks, in Proc. 10th IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications, ISCC 2005, La Manga,Spain, June 2005, pp. 686691. [3] Sheth A., Shucker B., Han R.: VLM2 : A Very Lightweight Mobile Multicast System For Wireless Sensor Networks, In Proceeding of IEEE WCNC 2003. [4] Chen B., Muniswamy-Reddy KK., Welsh M.: Ad-hoc Multicast Routing on Resource-Limited Sensors Nodes, In Proceeding of REALMAN 06, May 26, 2006, Italy. [5] Jetcheva J. G., Johnson D. B.: Adaptive Demand-Driven Multicast Routing in Multi-Hop Wireless Ad Hoc Networks. In 2001 ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (MobiHoc2001), October 2001. [6] Sanchez J.A., Ruiz P.M., Stojmenovic I. GMR: Geographic Multicast Routing for Wireless Sensor Network, In Proceeding in Sensor, Mesh and Ad-hoc Communication and Network, IEEE, Secon 06, 2006,Virginia, USA. [7] Zeng G., Wang Ch., Xiao L., Grid Multicast: an Energy-Efficient Multicast Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks [8] Chen K., Nahrstedt K.,: Effective location-guided overlay multicast in mobile ad hoc networks, International Journal of Wireless and Mobile Computing(IJWMC), vol. 3, 2005. [9] Mauve M., Fuler H., Widmer J., Lang T.: Position-Based Multicast Routing for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks, TR-03-004, Department of Computer Science, University of Mannheim, March, 2003. [10] Chen K., Nahrstedt K.: Efficient location-guided tree construction algorithms for small group multicast in Manet. In INFOCOM, pages 11801189, 2002.

nvab=nv parameter for scenario in Fig. 6a) and Fig. 6b) respectively. The authors of GMR [6] made an efficiency comparison with the similar based protocol PBM [9]. The authors of PBM attempt to find the optimal relation between the number of selected forwarding nodes and efficiency of the created path. For the evaluation of the possible subsets FS, (each selected subset fs FS) of forwarding nodes use the function described in the statement (8). 1 ,0 1 (8)

Here N is the rate between the number of selected forwarding nodes to the total number of possible forwarding (adjacent) nodes and S stands for the rate between the sum of distances from nodes in FS toward the destinations to the sum of distances from actual node (selecting forwarders) toward the destinations. As the authors present, the main issue is to find the optimal value of parameter that defines the efficiency of the selected solution. As the results from [6] show, the GMR notably outperform the PBM in the terms of the number of induced transmissions. As the density of adjacent neighbors of evaluated node varies from 5 to 10, the GMR achieves the 2-35% (density of 5) and 30-95% (density of 10) better results. The range of percentage results depends on the increasing value of parameter for PBM from lower value 0 to the maximum value 1. In terms of the number of transmission required for the message delivering to for instance 25 destinations with the density of 7, the GMR induces about 700 transmissions whilst the PBM about 900 transmissions. From these results, it is possible to highlight the two fundamental advantages of GMR. It is the suitable efficiency in terms of the number of transmission inducing and the independency on the other parameters. But the question arises, what results this protocol achieves upon the real implementation to the sensor motes with the constrained memory space and also how will battle with the bigger number of destinations, since the performed simulations consider just only small number of multicast receivers. V. CONCLUSION We have described a main principles, advantages and shortcomings of the multicast routing protocols for wireless sensor networks. As one can see, from the mentioned shortcomings of these protocols, the proposing of the new and energy-effective multicast protocol for the wireless sensor network is still the open challenge. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by the FRVS grant agency, project no. 1514/2008