Abstract
Relay-based multicasting for the purpose of cooperative content distribution is studied. Optimized relay selection is performed with the objective of minimizing the energy consumption or the content distribution delay within a cluster of cooperating mobiles. Two schemes are investigated. The first consists of the BS sending the data only to the relay, and the second scheme considers the scenario of threshold-based multicasting by the BS, where a relay is selected to transmit the data to the mobiles that were not able to receive the multicast data. Both schemes show significant superiority compared to the non-cooperative scenarios, in terms of energy consumption and delay reduction.