Efficient Buffer Management Protocol for Multicast Streaming in MANET

Buffer management techniques are essential while handling multicast streaming in MANET since real-time data will involve playback delay and jitter. In this paper, an efficient buffer management protocol is developed for streaming data in multicast groups. The frequently requested video data can be buffered in any intermediate nodes along the multicast tree from the source to the receivers. When packets are received, they are classified as real-time or non-real-time and placed into respective queues. Cumulative weight of the packets in the real-time buffer is then estimated based on number of hops, deadline and waiting time. Based on the estimated weight value, transmission priorities are assigned. The buffer space is dynamically adjusted depending on the number of intermediate nodes along the multicast tree from the source to the receivers. Simulation results show that the proposed buffer management protocol reduces the latency and energy consumption while increasing the packet delivery ratio.