Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) are a type of wireless network that has no fixed infrastructure and wireless nodes move arbitrarily. The MANETs are helpful in situations such as emergency search and rescue operations, battlefields, exhibitions, and conferences. Limited battery and low bandwidth are some of the main constraints in a wireless network. Moreover, nodes mobility causes network topology to change frequently in MAENTs. High control overhead is one of the main reasons of low packet delivery ratio (PDR) for a multicast routing protocol in MANETs. On-Demand Multicast Routing Protocol (ODMRP) is well-known for its simplicity, good PDR, and robustness against nodes mobility. The main drawback of this protocol is its high control overhead in the presence of a large number of senders that reduces PDR drastically. In this paper, we introduce LODMRP a new protocol to decrease this excessive control overhead. The proposed protocol tries to confine flooding of control packets within the network by broadcasting only a part of these packets based on a level-based approach. Simulation results show improvement in PDR and control overhead.
