Route Driven Gossip: Probabilistic Reliable Multicast in Ad Hoc Networks

Traditionally, reliable multicast protocols are deterministic in nature. It is precisely this determinism which tends to become their limiting factor when aiming at reliability and scalability, particularly in highly dynamic networks, e.g., ad hoc networks. As probabilistic protocols, gossip-based multicast protocols recently (re-)discovered in wired networks appear to be a viable means to "fight fire with fire" by exploiting the non-deterministic nature of ad hoc networks. This paper presents a protocol that is designed to meet a more practical specification of probabilistic reliability; this gossip-based multicast protocol, called Route Driven Gossip (RDG), can be deployed on any basic on-demand routing protocol. RDG is custom-tailored to ad hoc networks, achieving a high level of reliability without relying on any inherent multicast primitive. We illustrate our RDG protocol by layering it on top of the "bare" DSR protocol. We prove the reliability and scalability of RDG through both analysis and simulation.