Aiming at shortcomings of single data flow direction in existing wireless sensor networks（ WSNs）structures and complex implementation process of multicast network coding

a multicast network coding method based on multi-root multi-tree（ MRMT） structure is proposed

in which the MRMT structure is formed according to a father node selection algorithm based on node location and link relationship for providing multiple data flow directions for each node

and multiple energy-related disjoint paths from a source node to a destination node are obtained conveniently according to an energy-related MRMT link matrix so that multicast network coding can be simply carried out in the MRMT structure. Experimental results show that this method can not only balance network energy consumption

prolong network lifetime

but also promote network bandwidth.