Multicast routing strategy for SDN-cluster based MANET

The energy limitation and frequent movement of the mobile Ad hoc network (MANET) nodes (i.e., devices) make the routing process very difficult. The multicast routing problem is one of the NP-complete problems. Therefore, the need for a new power-aware approach to select an optimum multicast path with minimum power consumption that can enhance the performance and increase the lifetime of MANET has become urgent. Software defined network (SDN) is a new technique that can solve many problems of the traditional networks by dividing the architecture into data part and control part. This paper presents three power-aware multicast routing strategies for MANET. First one called a Reactive Multicast routing strategy for cluster based MANET by using SDN (RMCMS), second one called proactive multicast routing strategy for cluster based MANET by using SDN (PMCMS) and third one represents modification of PMCMS called M-PMCMS. Moreover, it produces a new mathematical model to build a multicast tree with minimum power consumption and takes into account the remaining power in each node. All proposed multicast strategies operate based on this mathematical model and aim to maximize the MANET lifetime by exploiting the advantages of SDN and clustering concepts. They consider the multicast tree with minimum power consumption as an optimal one. The simulation results illustrated that RMCMS is better than PMCMS, M-PMCMS, and MAODV in terms of power consumption and network overhead while M-PMCMS is the best one in terms of dropped packets ratio (DPR) and average end to end (E2E) delay.