Hierarchical agent-based secure and reliable multicast in wireless mesh networks

We propose and analyze a hierarchical agent-based secure and reliable multicast (HASRM) algorithm for efficiently supporting secure and reliable mobile multicast in wireless mesh networks, with design considerations given to minimize the overall network cost incurred by reliable multicast packet delivery, mobility management, security key management, and group membership maintenance. HASRM dynamically maintains a group of multicast agents running on mesh routers for integrated mobility and multicast service management and leverages a hierarchical multicast structure for secure and reliable multicast data delivery. The regional service size of each multicast agent is a key design parameter. We show via model-based performance analysis and simulation validation that there exists an optimal regional service size that minimizes the overall communication cost and the optimal regional service size can be dynamically determined. We demonstrate that HASRM under optimal settings significantly outperforms traditional algorithms based on shortest-path multicast trees extended with user mobility, security, and reliability support. We also show that a variant of HASRM is superior to a recently proposed multicast algorithm for secure group communication in wireless mesh networks.