Multi-rate multicast routing in multi-gateway multi-channel multi-radio wireless mesh networks

With increasing popularity of group communication applications, it is necessary to design efficient multicast routing algorithms. One important challenge in respect to multicasting is the bandwidth heterogeneity of the receivers, which limits the rate of data delivery to the receivers by the slowest one. In this paper, we study this problem in the context of Multi-gateway Multi-Channel Multi-Radio Wireless Mesh Networks (M3 WMNs). We design an efficient algorithm, which employs the well-established multi-rate technique for handling the bandwidth heterogeneity of the receivers. The proposed algorithm, namely Multi-Gateway Multi-Rate multicast routing (MGMR), aims at maximizing the total of the achieved data rates by the receivers while preserving fairness between them. We also formulate the optimal model of the problem to compare the outcomes of MGMR with the optimum. The simulation results demonstrate that MGMR yields high throughput results in a reasonable time.